Surthay
by Kyn
Summary: Set in Rasheman, forty years before Baldur's Gate. The story of a surly Wychlaran necromancer, Sheilaktar; and eventually her pupil, Homen Odesseiron. Filled with dark and witchy magic.
1. The Dusk Dragon

Dusk had settled over the Eastern Orchards of Rasheman, where the forests curled across the narrow plateau at the foot of the Sunrise Mountans. They were called 'orchards' for their fruit; not their temperament. The trees spiraled; gnarled, thick, and grasping; into the purple air, their branches flush with leaves and fruits of every color. On the forest floor, far beneath heavy bows, the intelligent spiders and dire beetles came out from hiding, accompanying raccoons, wintry tarsirs, coyotes, and owls.

The twilight air was purple with Faerie Fire, as the dragon-sprites and pixies played about in the branches; and fireflies and will'o'wisps filled the air between them. The forest was dark, and old, and filled with unpleasantries. It was where witches went to treat with hags, or gather rare herbs; a place of great spiritual power and presence, but also great danger.

But as the witch walked through her domain, staff in hand, she thought how happy she was to be _home_. Her stride was languid and casual, and the animals made way for her or else came to touch the hem of her cloak.

_Freedom is in exploring the darkness._ There was _air _out in the Orchards, away from the unsolicited companionship and petty squabbles of so many flustered witches. Glorious, free night air! There was a reason her sisters called her 'Dusk Dragon.'

Her companion, Nüdnisé, chittered in loud agreement, swooping up to seek her dinner in the canopy.

As she reached the stream, the Kelpies lifted their heads from grazing, and shifted about on their dainty hooves. A dozen wide and inncoent frog-eyes fixated on her, and great black eyelashes fluttered. Then the creatures lowered their heads again, because nothing was amiss. She walked past them, glancing at the youngest foal thoughtfully but without malice or grief.

The hour was later; the journey had been long; and now it was time for her to return home and _sleep_.

But just then a hummingbird came streaking out of the forest. The tiny creature bolted up to her, and paused midair to be certain it had ascertained her identity. She tilted her head to the side. "Lead the way," she told it.


	2. The Boy

The Dusk Dragon frowned, peering at the crumpled human form which was sprawled over the roots of a five-hundred year old apple tree. It was a man, the hummingbird explained, and he had collapsed there some time ago. He was breathing, the witch could hear; and the smell of damp wool suggested he was wet.

The witch woman shook her head and leaned her staff to the side, and lifted her skirts so she might kneel. The first thing she took note of was how _little_ the man weighed; a child would have been heavier. The overlarge brown cloak he was wearing must have been borrowed or else stolen. Then she summoned up a light and took a better look at his face. Her eyes widened in surprise and curiosity.

_A Mulan, _she realized. _How? _Her gaze flicked south, to where the icy northern shore of Lake Mulsantir was occluded by miles of cliffs and trees. Then she looked down at the crumpled man in disbelief. _Did thou swim here? Impossible. Then where the hells did thou come from?_

He _must_ have been Thayvian; as unlikely as it seemed, it made less sense to find a Mulhorandi or Untherite in Rasheman. _The crows may have him then; but let us see what his purpose was..._ _A Thayvian Mulan, even a commoner, should not be on Rashemi shores._

She began untethering the robe that she might search him. As one fastener came loose after the other, a vague uneasiness rose up in her. She paused what she was doing and picked up the man's arm, shook loose his sleeve, and ran her thumb over the curvature of his skin. His wrists were slender, even in proportion to the rest of his body.

The woman's brows furrowed, and she looked uncertainly to the sallow face. _You are no more than a boy, _she realized, and it was true. At most he might be seventeen. There was no reason for him to be so far north, or across the lake, unless someone had not intended that he return. She thought of Lake Mulsantir, whose waters were rife with predators loyal to the northern border. Then she turned her gaze out into the woods, where a number of hungry rats were scuttling, waiting to have their turn.

The Wychlaran looked back down at the boy. _Well, the dead cannot answer questions, _she decided, before leaning over to cast a warming cantrip on him. He was light enough to carry, and the made the trip to her cottage with little real trouble.


	3. Smudging

Her captive was scarcely breathing, and his lukewarm temperature suggested hypothermia. Death would soon follow. His robes hung sopping from a wall peg, and she'd quickly built him a makeshift palette of old fur blankets and a cloak of crow feathers.

The fire helped to warm the small one-roomed cottage. Smooth stones were nestled around its hearth, some big and some small. When they had become too hot to touch, the witch wrapped several in warm cloth and then nestled them under his covers. Others she placed into a ceramic basin with her fire tongs, and covered them with spring water from a crystal flask.

Her fingers ran over jars, bowls, matts, vases, and tins as she pecked around her cottage. From a cupboard she found leaves of the silver apricot, dried and crushed into powder. In a glass jar she found hazelwood twigs, steeping in liquor of whortleberry. She snagged a bulb of garlic from where they were strung up overhead in the rafters. She tapped the vials on her racks, and extracted an essential oil of angelica. A drop she'd waste, no more. And a drop of Fennel, she supposed. But then they were not so rare or terribly hard to make. ..

She settled down the basin, sprinkling in her ingrediets and letting the two hazel wood twigs lean against the side. The water turned translucent and somewhat purple. It still needed a hint of freshness and life. Leaning onto her window sill, the witch gestured out into the evening air. A soft gust blew fresh apple leaves into her palm, and she dropped them gently onto the surface of the steaming water.

The witch stood with the basin in hand and turned to weave her way back through the cottage, picking up a clean cloth from one wall and wetting it before she knelt upon the makeshift palette. She pulled aside the heavy comforters, and reached down to dab against her captive's face, throat, and torso. As she worked, she examined injuries she had found covering a good third or half of his body. They were scald marks; the sort of which one might have incurred if thrown into a caldron of boiling water. They seemed recent, if the ugly red color was proper indiation. Some form of healing- mayhaps a potion- had healed the worst blisters and sealed most leisions.

_"In the name of the mother;" _she murmured, comfortable but focused even at such a late hour, _"in the name of the three; let his blood be rejuvinated with the heat of life. Turn the fire of these wounds to greater purpose, to drive back the frost."_

She bathed him carefully and swiftly with the heated water. When she was done, she fed him some of the liquor of whortleberry. A flush had risen in his cheeks. She touched his face and neck, and then chafted gently over his shoulders. The spell was taking hold, it seemed; he was heating up. Satisfied, she pulled the covers back over his head, and stood. She left the cottage for a short while, sitting amoungst her herbs and contemplating the evening gloom.

A Mulan child had neither accidentally nor casually found himself in Rasheman. The scalding she'd witnessed had seemed unnatural; the center wound had been red as if he'd been struck by the boiling water with quite some force. Could magic have been responsible? Some battle internal to Thay? Some trouble or misfortune she might inherit?

On a whim she stood up and went to find a white candle to light. She selected an incense stick made from rue, burdock, and antimony, which she gathered up in a bundle of sage for smudging. She lit both until they were smoking gently, and then carried them about her home to ensure the smoke reached every corner.

_"Let all dark eyes and malevolant wills be cast out and barred from this place. Let it depart shamefully and know: all evil is unwelcome here, in the light of this candle, in the fervor of my sight."_


	4. Greetings

When the boy stirred, the cottage was warm with yellow light trickling down through the canopy. At first he did no more than turn his head as if sleeping restlessly. Then his eyes peeled open and he winced. Squeezing his eyes shut again in pain, he tried to sit up. His strength only got him so far. There he paused, blinking rapidly as he attempted to get his bearings.

The witch blew softly over her tea. "Good morning, Thayvian."

The boy looked at her quickly. His eyes were a dark, slate gray against his sallow flesh. For a moment he seemed briefly puzzled by the sight of her. Then his gaze drifted briefly around the cottage. Then, instead of looking fearful as she had expected, his gaze turned briefly neutral.

"My Rashemi poor," he murmured quietly. "Good morning."

The witch raised a brow, digesting this answer. The vapors of her tea beckoned further contemplation. She took another sip, and then tapped the mug with her nails. {So art mine Mulhorandi,} she decied at last. {What art thou doing on Rasheman?}

"I needed to... flee," he told her, trying to situate himself in an easier position against his pillows.

"Thou fled to the land of thine enemy?" she asked incredulously,

"Enemy?" he asked, and then shrugged weakly. "Where do I has allies?"

"Is Thay not thine home?" she wondered incredulously.

His gaze turned incredibly solemn, and he did not answer as he looked to the floor. The witch regarded him curiously, for she had always understood Thayvians to be patriotic not only to country but to province, and to espouse their allegiances loudly. After a long stillness, his gaze shifted to the side. "Is you Wychlaran?" he asked.

"Of course," she retorted. "Do I look unproven to thee?"

"Is you going to kill me?" he asked quietly.

She took a slow breath and sighed. "I am entertaining the notion. Tell me, Thayvian; what would thou do if I decided to kill thee right now?"

He answered: "Die."

That drew a laugh from her. "I see. And what would thou do if I found it within my heart to turn thee loose where I found thee?"

The boy shrugged. "Most likely: Die."

She tilted her head, smiling in amusement and sipping on her tea. "I see. Well then, if thou were to have thine own say, what would thou ask that I do with thee, mm?"

The boy looked at her quietly. His gaze shifted inward as he considered. Then he focused on her again. "Have me... work off the debt of saving me?" he asked weakly.

The witch raised a brow. A Thayvian spoke with humility? A Mulan volunteered humble labor to a Rashemi? Most likely he intended to knife her in his sleep!

But a worrying uncertainty welled up in her breast, as she watched the boy whom had tossed and fevered for two days under her care and yet never called out for anyone: not for a mother, a sister, or even a nursemaid. There was a cold and haunted silence to his face, and in his eyes.

Something had happened to this child. Something where leaping into Mulsantir's freezing waters and fleeing into the lands of the Wychlaran had been less frightening than staying in country.

After the silence had stretched ominously between them for well over a minute, she inclined her head. "We shall see," she answered then, and stood to pour him a few ladels of soup broth.


	5. Goats

"Boy, how old art thou?" she asked him from the stoop as she wove grass blades into a new basket.

The Mulan looked up at her from where he'd been thrown into the dirt, and he rubbed his arm with a painful wince. "Ten and seven," he told her.

"And thou has never in thine life milked a goat?" she wondered incredulously, a grin on her face.

He shook his head with startling innocence.

"I can tell," she chortled. "That was the _buck_." He blinked vacantly, not understanding the term. "The male goat. What _doest_ thou know how to do? Any boy your age should be proficient at least in _chores_."

He made a face of surprise. Then he stood, dusting off the overlarge robes. He was as tall as her, to be certain, but much too thin. "I is not 'boy.' I comed of age last year."

"At sixteen?" she laughed in disbelief. "Here in Rasheman, thou art a boy. And thou shall continue to remain a child until thine twenty-first year, at which point perhaps thou might have gathered some wisdom."

He paused, a hesitant frown tugging low at the corners of his mouth as if something had suddenly occured to him.

"Cannot milk a goat," she muttered wryly, talking to herself more than him. "Adulthood implies responsibility for making one's own judgements. How can one make good judgements without maturity, or without even basic threshold knowledge about the world?"

She had expected a show of pride or disdain from the foreign whelp, but instead his actions disarmed her: "Will show me?" he requested. "I can learn."

She studied him for a long moment. Then she nodded, settled down the basket, and stepped up from the cottage doorway. "Once and once only," she agreed. "So watch closely, _child_."

Instead of becoming riled, he inclined his head respectfully; accepting the appelation as the best he'd yet earned from her. She paused to regard his face, but as usual he did not look her in the eyes. She looked for signs of viperousness, resentment, or manipulation about his countenance but, if anything, he seemed perpetually _tired_. After a moment she took him by the shoulder and led him up to where the animals were feeding. Goats were not so terribly difficult once one got to know them.


	6. One's Keep

By nightfall, the Mulan boy looked exhausted. He had acquired a fresh set of bruises. When she called him in and bade him sit, however, he did not complain; And when she offered him a bowl of hearty stew, he took it and blew heat from the surface without question.

She sat to eat her own meal and watched him. He rarely looked at her. The way his eyes stayed focused on the ground or an invisible horizon suggested he spent much time either adrift in his own head or else escaping thought all-together. When he took his first bite of vegetables and meat, a look of displeased surprise briefly crossed his face. He paused then and then focused on the brown mixture he was holding; stuffed full of stalk and root vegetables and inundated with rabbit meat. Apparently the taste was strange to him.

His hands trembled, and a moment later he took in a sharp and soundless breath. Then he dug into the meal as if starving; wolfed it down like a beast. He ate everything. He gathered up every drop of gravy on the edge of his spoon to drink.

When he was done he moved to set the bowl down. She coughed and gestured to a pitcher of well water. It took him a moment to process what she was asking. Then he went to wash off his dishes, and hers soon after. She showed him how to dispose of the dirty water. Betime he was done, he looked dead on his feet; and his face was heated in a way that suggested he was suffering from some kinds of emotional deluge. She sent him to bed, and he was sound asleep in minutes.

The witch spent some time working on her own herb preparations and other chores. Then she stood and came up to the makeshift palette, watching her 'captive' sleep. He was a fragile-looking creature, like a bird plucked of all its feathers. His skin was a pale and yellowish color, and he had no hair upon his head. She leaned over slightly, pulling up one of her sleeves to bare the cocoa color of her arm. His bones were thin, his muscles lean, and his flesh was was as smooth as oiled buckskin; Her forearm was just as long as his, but twice its diameter, and her skin featured plenty of soft, natural hair.

She shook her head, amused by the differences. He looked very frail within his brown robes. Perhaps he needed to learn to hem, next.

Before heading to bed, she tucked him into the fur covers. He was, it appeared, only human.


	7. Do not leave the cottage yard

She taught him to sew, both in planning and execution. She taught him to spin. He sweapt the floor, washed the dishes, and dusted the cobwebs. He maintained the fire, covering hot coals when they were unneeded and reviving them later.

He was terrible at splitting firewood; he improved. He had no idea how to build a fire from naught but flint and tinder; he was patient for hours and hours of trial and error. He was responsible for mastering the art of churning butter; which she used in just about every recipe. Thus far, he had not been very successful.

The days passed in a manner so mundane that it seemed almost as if he had always been there.

The Mulan boy did not match her expectations of what it meant to be Thayvian. He was quiet and obedient; and meek to the point of subservience. He rarely contradicted her even in ignorance, and he never complained about any task she gave to him.

"Hmm," she observed of a jar as days blended into weeks. "I need to gather herbs today. I am out of alfalfa. And low on others..."

"What should I do?" he asked, eyeing the butter churner contemplatively as if selecting his tactic for the day.

She waved a hand, uncaring. "Clean, perhaps. Or rest; I need nothing of you."

He looked to her in surprise, scratching lightly at his jaw.

He did have the ability to grow hair, as it turned out; though the folicals on his head were sparsely distributed in comparison to a Rashemi's. His only facial hair grew in a thin mustache and about the frame of his chin. As for body hair, it seemed he naturally had none. Mulan were strange creatures.

"Nothing?" he asked. She was too distracted to notice he sounded worried. As she made to pass him and exit the home, she paused to give him one final instruction: "Do not leave the cottage yard," she warned him sternly. "These forests eat strangers."


	8. Cluttered

The young man looked hesitantly around the cottage. It was a space in which he'd never before been unoccupied, or alone. From dawn until dusk, the Wychlaran had kept him busy. It helped; he had less time to think. Now, left to his own devices, he was not sure what to do.

It was also unsettling for the witch herself to be absent. Since he'd awoken all those many days ago, she had been a constant presence. The sudden deprivation of her presence- and she was a woman with _quite_ an inordinate amount of presence- made everything seem...

...quiet.

The butter preparation from three days past still to be churned of course, so he set to managing that. As he worked, his eyes traced the cottage features. The witch could not be considered 'messy' in the sense that all of her things were visible, dusted, upright, and in use. A great amount of utility had been coaxed from the four walls, narrow wood pillars, and low rafters of the tiny cottage. There were pegs, racks, hooks and cabinets.

On the other hand, there was scarcely a surface unoccupied by a wide variety of randomly scattered bowls, vials, flasks, jars, cans, vases, assorted herbs, spiced, fruits and vegetables, nuts, mortars and pestles, cloves, garlic, flowers, totems, incense sticks, candles, bundles, and bags occupied nearly every conceivable inch of space. Dangling from the rafters were flowering ivy plants, nets of dried gourds, and cloth satchels or racks filled to the brim with supplies.

No, the Wychlaran was not 'messy.' But her home was singularly the most cluttered space the young man had ever borne witness to. He could scarcely imagine or comprehend a home with more area taken up by unmanaged, loose objects.

He finished with the churn. Using cheesecloth, he attempted to strain the butter clods from the buttermilk. His result was pitiful in size. Butter, he thought, was proof that simple tasks could be surprisingly difficult. He looked back up at the cottage. His fingers tapped nervously against the churn. 'Rest...' she had told him; but that had only been her _second_ suggestion. The young man gave a dry swallow.

The Wychlaran did not return home that evening.

Anxiety kept him from sleeping.


	9. Uncluttered

It was morning when the witch returned to her cottage. After entering she let out an undignified exclamation of surprise. The boy jumped, and then twisted about to look at her. He loosed a hard breath, and leaned on his broom.

"What have thou done?!" she demanded.

"Is organized," he explained.

"Organized? Where is everything!?" she scolded, stalking about the chamber.

"The cupboards, the shelves, the bins, the racks," he listed; "Alphabetical, likes with likes."

She appraised one of her vial racks, which had indeed been reorganized such that only the largest flasks were on the bottom, the smallest were exclusively on the top, the names for each set were alphabetized, and the rack contained only essences and oils. A second rack contained extracts and liquors.

The witch turned and fixed the boy with a stern glare. "What possessed thee to do this thing?" she required immediate explanation.

"You said to 'clean.' I wanted to make easier to find everything-"

"Easier for thou or for me?" she glowered. "I knew exactly where each object was! Now thou hast moved everything!"

He swallowed and looked down. She watched him critically a moment. Then she looked up into the rafters. He had left the gourds, which were large and unweildy, and frequently used objects such as cloths, tools, and utensils. Suprisingly, he had also left the garlic, rue, and several other spices she'd left pinned and strung up along the rafters.

"So why not 'clean up' and 'organize' these as well?" she asked, gesturing angrily at the ceiling. "Why be inconsistent in moving around things that do not belong to thee? Need I remind you that you are barely even tolerated here?!"

He flinched. "Their positioning seemed deliberate," he whispered quickly. "They was spread out. I reasoned they was protective."

"'Were'," she corrected his grammar unconsciously, and then turned a thoughtful look onto him. "Protective how?"

He shifted, as if not knowing what to say. "Perhaps the smell discourage termites," he offered at last. He glanced up to see she was still glowering. He looked down again, seeming very uncomfortable. "Some things did not look stored or forgotten; they looked deliberately placed. Under mats... in window and threshold... in pillows, on mantle... Some in sachets; others tied up, presented. I did not clean these.

I do not know or question the reason for their witch placing them, except to see they were intentional, so that I should not disturb them."

She straightened a little, and crossed her arms over her chest. "And you presume to know when what I am doing is intentional? You are a Wychlaran now? Tell me, did you clean up my kettle, boy?"

The young man looked miserable; his knuckles were white around the broom. "The one you took out... before seeing the lack of herbs? You filled it with flask water, not well water. I supposed that might be significant, so I poured it back into the flask."

His response was incredibly observant, and gave the Dusk Dragon pause. She studied the Mulan child with fresh eyes, a thoughtful frown crinkling her brow. After a moment, she began taking inventory of her home, she paid attention to where each and every item had been placed. A few materials she had left to cure in the sun had been placed on a rack and neatly tilted to absorb heat and light. The flask he'd refilled with her forgotten moonwater had been settled neatly against the back of her counter top. He had dusted everything.

This was unexpected, and the Wychlaran placed her hands upon her hips and turned a curious expression back to the downcast child. She had suffered through ethrans twice his age- and significantly older than herself!- destroying rare and delicate ingredients in an effort to 'help' her. And here it appeared the Thayvian had damaged nothing at all. Not a thing.

In fact, he'd most likely saved the moonwater. She'd been chastising herself the whole trip back to the cottage for leaving it out. There was nothing whatsoever in his behavior to find flaw with.

She frowned. Then she lifted a hand to rub her face. "Start a fire," she told him, her tone subdued. He scrambled to obey instantaneously.


	10. Gardening

The Wychlaran's hair looked red in sunlight. It was mahogany brown, and stood in subtle contrast against the warm coffee color of her skin and the plain tan and cream colors she wore. The color brought out her youth.

She wore no metal jewelry of any kind, but that was not to say she was unadorned. She wore many a tribal fetish, or at least that was the only means by which he knew to describe them. She had talismans of interlaced strings, beads, and feathers, which stretched across bowed frames in spiderweb patterns. Her cloaks were fringed with feathers.

She wore necklaces of sharp teeth; bracelets of woven hair, fur, and plant material; and always she had plenty of beads. Often she would bead and braid strands of her hair, and push feathers or herbs into them. In aesthetic contrast, there were several 'trophy' like items at her belt sash, including shriveled humanoid fingers far too long to have come to any race he knew of. Her ears were pierced in several places; the earrings she wore currently were beaded and equipped with dangling bear claws.

There was a sense of wisdom to her; a ghost of ancient things; that belied her age. The skin of her face was smooth, even about the eyes. If he had guessed, he would have placed her at twenty-five or twenty-six.

"Come here," she told him, pushing up her sleeves. He obeyed. "This is a belladona bush," she explained, gesturing for him to kneel with her. "We are going to prune it."

He nodded, obeying her instructions as she lectured him on everything there was to know about plants. His mind was quiet. Passive. It soaked in all details without discrimination, rejecting none.

"Repeat back to me what I just said," she told him, as if irritated that he was not listening.

"You said it can be used to dilate the pupils and allow examination of the eyes for illnesses; or in questionable cosmetic pursuits to make the gaze more enchanting. The exact administration for either purpose should be a dosage of only two droplets of a solution prepared from no more that one part mature extract from the leaves to every-"

She planted her hands on her hips and he trailed off, glancing briefly down at her and then looking uncertainly down at the herbs. A moment passed in silence.

"Well perhaps this is not a vain exercise after all," she decided. "This plant over here is milk thistle."


	11. Autumn

It had been ten weeks; two and a half months; heading into the winter season. It was getting cold out; cold enough that the young man had to breathe on his hands whenever he was outside and rub them against one another.

The witch was inclined to head out often from the cottage in the course of a week, returning with snared rabbits, materials, or else tasks crossed off a mental checklist he knew little of. Sometimes she left with herbal preparations and did not return with them. He did not ask many questions. Always she paused to warn him: "Do not stray from the cottage grounds." Usually she had instructions for tasks she needed handled in the midterm.

He didn't ask the reasons for these tasks, but he had the impression that she was stocking up on supplies for winter. Why she needed so many herbs, he did not know; but she had stocked up on tinder which needed to be dried, and he now spent most evenings canning, pickling, smoking, salting, or drying various foodstuffs. At present he was milling dark grains with a small quern. Behind him, the Wychlaran was hard at work over some textiles.

His mind must have wandered, because he found himself drawing sigils in the fresh brown powder. A creaking floorboard signaled the witch had stood. He realized what he was doing and quickly smeared the powder out, and breathed in slowly. "Finally. Hmm, turn about," she called to him. "Let us see if this fits thee."

She was holding up a new coat of oiled buckskin, with a lining spun woven from spun goat-hair. For a moment, he involuntarily recalled the soft touch of red silk. Then he craved the garment she was holding with everything in him. When he stood, she helped him put his arms through it and then settled it onto his shoulders. The goat hair made for amazing insulation, and his body temperature rose. He had expected it to itch, but it seemed she had lined the areas around the hood, neck, and hands with rabbit fur for just that reason.

"There, this should keep thee from freezing this winter." she said, stepping in front of him and adjusting it about his shoulders. "So scrawny... Art thou warm?"

"Yes," he murmured, watching her face. "Thank you. I do not deserve this."

She grunted. "Bah. It should buy me time to make thee proper boots and gloves," she agreed. "If the insulation gets wet, thou needeth dry it before a fire; or it will smell musky ever after. I will show thee how to keep the leather in good condition, or oil it if need be."

"I will learn to take care of it," he promised, comfortable for the first time in weeks. _Good clothing is no small matter out in the world._ The witch seemed pleased with his response, and patted him on the shoulder before turning to retrieve her own cloak.

"Good. With that finished, I need to head out to attend to a few matters."

"How long will you be gone?" he asked her. She usually liked hot blueberry tea upon her return.

She sighed. "A full day at least." After a moment, she threw him a wry grin. "No shocking surprises this time, please."

The young man straightened up, looking at her uncertainly. He felt a tenseness then, or perhaps a trepidation. For him, the days flew by without past or future, and the Wychlaran was his only point of reference. A few hours of absence gave him time to complete tasks. But days? "What... what should I do with that time?" he asked.

"Maintain the cottage and see to thy chores," she told him, walking over to the fireplace and poking through the cinders with a fire tong. "Can thou read Rashemi?"

"Yes," he answered. "Well enough."

She drew out some charcoal from the fire and then quickly moved over to a table and scribbled out a list of tasks. Looking at them, the young man felt a little more calm; there was no way he could finish before she returned, and so at least he would keep busy. Still, an uncomfortable sensation nagged at him. "Your trip," he asked, "is it dangerous?"

The Wychlaran looked at him in surprise. Then she laughed. "For others, perhaps," she told him. "For me? No. The Orchards are my home, and I know every twig."

The young man accepted this, running his thumbs over the soft rabbit fur at his coat sleeves. That she had sewn it such for his comfort was very meaningful. He was dependent on her for every aspect of his survival; there was no matter on which she was not the highest authority.


	12. Familiarity

As he paced and cleaned anxiously into the wee hours, the young man found his hostess had left out a bottle of nightshade syrup with a measuring spoon for him to find. He trembled upon seeing it, feeling irresponsible and helpless. Then, like a child in desperate need of guidance, he took up the medicine and measured himself a careful dosage. Shakily, he settled down his broom and looked around the room. The sight of his own palette sent illogical strands of fear writhing through his belly.

With a strangled breath, he turned and picked his way over to her bed. He climbed in under the furs and feathers, and hugged her pillow to his face. Hopefully she would never know he'd done such a strange thing; but the smell of her was comforting and he needed it. The nightshade knocked him out before half an hour had elapsed.

The Wychlaran returned late on the second day after her departure. He'd ended up taking the syrup that even too, so he was wide awake when she arrived.

She settled down her staff, pulled off her cloak, and thanked him for the tea he handed her. As she sat down in a chair to catch her breath, she asked him to pull out several of her herbal concoctions. While his back was turned she rolled up her sleeve, and when he turned around he saw that her arm was pitted through with wounds that looked acidic in nature.

"You said it was not dangerous!" he accused loudly.

The Wychlaran blinked up at him, surprised by the outburst from her otherwise mellow 'guest.' He turned a funny shade of red, and looked down. She broke out laughing and then waved him forward. "Dangerous," she told him gently, "implies a very real chance one might suffer _irreparable_ harm. Pull out the wool bandages... This is in need of mending."

He nodded, though a lingering anxiety left him wondering how plant matter could restore such a badly damaged limb.

She instructed him in how to prepare the dressings, and though he glanced once or twice at the acid burns, he did as he was bid. She sipped her tea almost nonchalantly, though surely the injury must have stung. Perhaps she had consumed pain killers? When the bandages were ready, she settled her tea down and dipped her fingers into an 'anointing oil' he had brought her.

"Apply it just so... There," she winced. "In the name of the spirits and the Three; I ask thee for thy blessing in restoring what has been lost." Her words turned more archaic, and though he could pull out a term here or there he did not quite understand her. As she spoke, and flicked droplets of oil over his handiwork he felt the telltale hum of energy under his fingertips.

_The herbs... she is using them as a divine magic tool, _he realized. She continued her chanting for another minute, and then nodded and gently capped the oil. "Will it take long to mend?" he asked her.

"A few days," she told him.

A second outburst leaked from his mouth that day: "Then herbal magic is slow. Why study it; other magics heal faster."

She raised a brow. "It was no 'other' magic which saved your life the day I found you," she told him, "so perhaps you should not be critical."

On reflection, he had no idea why he'd criticized _her_. Perhaps he did not like to think of her as having limitations or vulnerabilities. Perhaps he merely wanted that arm fixed. He could still see the wound in his mind's eye. "I spoke without wit," he apologized solemnly.

"Well... At least you _spoke_," she was mollified, and her voice sounded amused. He glanced up at her, uncertain what she meant. "You spend most of your hours in silence. Mental silence too, I think. As if perpetually exhausted."

He shifted, looking back at her bandaged arm. He licked chapped lips. "The Wychlaran has never pressed me to talk," he said slowly.

"After awhile, I didn't see the need; you have always been inclined to behave yourself." She sat back, taking a deep breath. "Do you think you have yet paid the debt of your survival to me? I spent very few resources at the time; and you have certainly saved me a great deal of trouble since then. It seems a fair trade has occurred."

The words made him feel cold. "If I say yes... do I have to leave?" he asked.

"You don't want to depart this cottage? Rasheman?" she wondered.

The young man shook his head. "I have nowhere at all to go." He looked up to her. Her eyes were a yellow hazel color; and in certain lighting she could seem cat-like.

She waved a hand, dismissive of his claim. "You could go _anywhere_. This is not a place well-suited to Thayvians. There are no ambitions to be pursued here; no wealth or prestige to gain; no cities to conquer."

"I have had my fill of conquered cities," he said, lowering his eyes again. He felt frantic, suddenly, and his voice was a whisper: "Do I have to leave?"

The Wychlaran was silent for a long time. His muscle tensed as he sat there, closing tightly around nerves and causing stress and pain. His heart rate accelerated. He was asking this of a self-proclaimed hermit; a woman who chose to live alone and eschewed the company of her fellow witches and indeed all of her countrymen. _He_ was an outsider, and from an enemy country; To impose on her space further seemed foolish.

But she lifted up her tea and shook her head. "No, child," the Wychlaran told him quietly. "You do not have to leave."


	13. Fosterling

The Wychlaran watched her 'captive' thoughtfully.

The boy had steady hands. He worked with deftness at even the most minute tasks, and once she'd taught him to use a needle she found that each stitch was measured, straight, and precise. He was observant, careful, and patient. He was quiet, and the animals had grown comfortable in his presence. Non migratory songbirds no longer hid when he went outside.

'Captive' was unsuitable word for him; as was 'guest' or even 'boarder.' The correct term might have been 'fosterling,' which in Rashemi was a close derivative of 'apprentice' and was typically used to describe children of poor families who were sent to be raised by skilled laborers in order to help out with chores and learn a trade.

His hair had grown two inches in length since arrival, and it was thin, black, and silky. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his nose was thin and aquiline, and his face in general was thin and triangular. He was but eight years her junior, but a boyishness lingered about his every attribute.

Not just his physical attributes either.

"How do you keep track of the days?" he asked her as he measured ingredients into sachets at her behest. "Of the year."

She tapped on an arrangement of quartz along the window sill. "It is three days till Samhain. Thou may know this as the feast of the dead."

He seemed to have known the festival was significant to Wychlaran, and to have anticipated its approach, because he nodded. His immediate question was: "Will you be traveling?"

The witch smiled at what was fast becoming a predictable quirk of her fosterling: he did not like to be left alone. She was starting to consider bringing him out on her more mundane errands. "I go out for Samhain, but I do not travel."

This relaxed him to some extent. She couldn't help but tease:

"Samhain is my favorite time of the year. It is when the spirits and ghosts come out and wander the orchards, howling at the moon and weeping tears of blood, begging for anyone to give them rest. When the corpses of drowned children and hanged men rise up from the earth as lumps of mud and ichor, and stumble about looking to crawl into the bellies of living women to be reincarnated anew."

The Thayvian paused. Then he turned about in his chair and eyed her strangely. "Are you telling stories to try and scare me?" he wondered.

"No," she answered truthfully. His eyes widened slightly. She laughed. "I typically spend Samhain morning visiting with the hags and other fae in a social fashion. The evenings, I spend alone, meditating in the forest. I am never back till morning. By now thou should know my common warning whenever I head out?"

" 'Do not leave the cottage grounds,' " he echoed.

"That is doubly in effect for the Feast of the Dead. And I assure thee, there are things in the forest who will sense thee here, and which will try to lure thee out."

He raised a slender brow. "What sort of things?"

"All manner of nefarious illusion-spinner and and shape-shifting spirit," the woman told him. "Whatever thou seeth, do not leave. Take a spoonful of Nightshade if thou must and go straight to bed when night falls. This place is protected so that no magic can truly be worked against thee, and there is even a dream catcher over thy bed."

He shifted. "It is truly that dangerous?" he wondered incredulously.

"To menfolk. Boy we are in Rasheman," she told him, "where the spirits dance on even the sunniest days. We are in one of the oldest and most twisted forests in Rasheman; the cottage is built on a ley line; there are ponds and mushroom circles and gnarled holes beneath tree roots which lead to the Feywild scattered all over the region; and there are no less than three hag covens nearby." He frowned. "Do not leave the cottage grounds for an instant. And most certainly not for a simple trick, like the sounds of screams or battle."


	14. Samhain

The young man hugged his cloak tighter around himself as he looked off into the Orchards. One of the goats, Nana, stood next to him. Dusk was falling, and the wind was picking up. It was times like these when he felt at his lowest: when all he could do was wait. At best he was impotent; at worst he was a liability. He wasn't sure who to pray to for her safe return.

_The only reason you want her to come back is because you need someone to take care of you, _an internal voice accused venomously. He cringed against it, feeling selfish. _If she died today, you would also perish. _

He would have been useless even equipped with magic, and had no skills to speak of. _That is not precisely true,_ he thought wretchedly as Nana came up to nose his fingers._ I can make very good goat butter. _She bleated. _Perhaps I could become a shepherd. _His thoughts felt incredibly fragmented.

Nana was the first animal in all the world to have ever voluntarily approached him, and apparently living proof that animals would look to anyone who fed them. He sighed and scratched gently around her horns. "Come back safely, _senneta_," he pleaded helplessly of the night air, and then he turned to head towards the cottage. He frowned when the other goats, clustered around the cottage, suddenly all jumped in unison and bounded skittishly towards their pen.

A whisper like human words rushed across the clearing. The hair on the back of his neck turned on end, and he looked back to see a woman all in red standing before the cottage gate. His eyes widened. She smiled warmly at him, and held out her hands.

{Brother,} Leonlai chuckled. {We've _finally_ found you.}

The fog parted. Other shapes stepped forward, also cloaked in red. {Is that him? By Bane, we've been looking for you across half Faerun!} his mother chastised. {What happened?}

{Apparently he's been hiding out in a Rashemi shepherd's hovel,} one of his brothers laughed.

The young man looked up into their faces as his mother waved him forward and his sister laughed. Then he stumbled backwards and looked down to see Nana shoving him away from the gate. He reached out to the animal instinctively, grabbing hold of one of her horns. Nana surged past, spinning him around and leading him forcefully away from the gate. He stumbled to keep up.

{What are you doing?} his sister exclaimed.

{Quickly, come, let's get out of this damnable country!}

{What- Is he bewitched?!}

Nana led him further and further back towards the cottage. Behind him, his family continued to shout. When he and the goat had both reached the threshold he grabbed firmly to the door frame and waited. Nana stood there, contemplating whether to leap up and headbutt him. He bit his lower lip, because this was something he _needed_ to do.

Behind him, the shouting continued. And continued. The voices pleaded. Then they ordered. They threatened his privileges. But not one of them stepped into the cottage grounds. The seconds stretched out into minutes, and then into fractions of an hour. The cacophony did not stop.

Tears slipped down the young man's face. He wiped his face with his sleeve, took in a few shuddering breaths to calm himself, and then reached down to scratch around Nana's horns. "Come on," he whispered to the goat under the cajoling and demands of his 'family', patting the animal's rump to get her into the cottage. "You can sleep inside tonight."

Nanas probably made for warm pillows, anyway; and if he was going to end up a shepherd, he might as well get used to the idea.

* * *

**Mulhorandi:** senneta

**Faerun Translation:  
**1\. (formal form of address for family member) Elder sister.  
2\. (formal form of address for high ranking female clergy, ie: 'mother' with nuns) Sister; High Priestess; Reverend Mother.  
3\. (colloquial) Term of respect for a wise woman who are typically unrelated to the speaker.

**How I Built It Using Middle Egyptian  
**\- snt: 1. sister 2. aunt  
\- aA: 1. great 2. plentiful 3. senior


	15. A Mask

The Wychlaran looked exhausted. She reached the cottage early that morning while he was milking the goats. He paused for a moment, to make sure it was really her. Then when she'd entered the grounds, he swiftly moved to her side.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, offering her a shoulder to lean on. She took it.

"No," she laughed, "just worn. It is good to have a helping hand to lean on, I'll admit."

"You seem cold," he noted as he guided her to the doorway. "I have a kettle boiling."

"Thou always doeth," she smiled. "I'll take my tea in bed, and thanks be to thee. I need to _sleep_."

He'd seen proof enough that she'd not been exaggerating about Rasheman, the Orchards, and Samhain. Why she'd chosen to remain outside was a mystery to him, but he did not question her at present. Instead he set some tea to steeping and helped her get her cloak and traveling clothes off. She was very cold. He added a few logs to the fire. A few minutes passed in silence.

"Why does my bed smell of wet goat?" she asked him abruptly.

_Oh. Caught._ "I... I let one of the goats inside, and she climbed onto the bed for awhile once," he told her. "She was keeping me company. I'm sorry."

The witch smiled in amusement and did not open her eyes. She waved a hand dismissively, and enjoyed her blankets. A short while later he brought her some tea, and she thanked him and sipped on it.

"What did you do out there?" he asked her. "I saw things... Images, or ghosts, like you said. It was dangerous out there."

"I communed with the spirits, heard out last requests, and settled disputes," she told him. "All in a day's work for my profession, I think." He fixed her with a doubtful expression and she winked. "I will be fine, little worrywart."

The ringing of a loud gong sounded across the cottage. The young man nearly leaped out of his skin. The witch went still for a moment. Then she sat up clumsily and threw blankets off her legs, settling her tea down. "They would not _dare_," She hissed.

"Who? What was that?" he asked, though with a dread building in his gut he already knew.

"Alarms," she snapped, quickly grabbing for her boots. "Someone has dispelled my most poignant defensive wards, and there are only certain individuals who would need to do so. Get me my staff!"

He obeyed. "Are we under attack?!" He knew the Wychlaran to be capable of some very interesting forms of magic, but she was no warrior.

"Get down," she told him, standing up with heavy help from the staff. She hobbled over to the mantle place. "Stay away from the door and windows! They think me weak now? Bah!"

"I must be able to help!" he protested, pursuing her. "You are exhausted, and if you go out there-!"

She whirled on him. He came up short, and swallowed at her intense expression. Then he bowed his head, and sank to his knees beside the fireplace. She huffed, and then placed her hand against the stones and murmured words of power. He glanced up in her in surprise, and then his eyes widened as she extracted a bone white mask from within the stone of the mantelpiece.

Without a word she twirled it about and latched it over her face. Its mane of blue heron feathers spiraled over her mahogany hair, and she seemed a completely alien entity with it on.

_You are a Hathran? _he wondered in shock. Such a thing seemed impossible; Hathran were the elite leaders of the Wychlaran, and there were a scant two hundreds of them in all the world. How could a druid numbering a scant two dozen years have earned that sort of title, much less living as a hermit specializing in herbal magics?

"Stay down," she repeated to him, and then she turned and shuffled quickly out the entrance of the cottage.

He stayed there. Kneeling. Helpless. Vulnerable. His arms shook. He clutched the belt knife at his side. Then he bolted to his feet and came up against the doorway, peeking out. She was exiting the cottage grounds. He took in a deep breath to steady himself. The moment she left his sight, he drew his belt knife and darted out from the cottage door.


	16. The Sewing Needle

The young man watched quietly from the fen bushes. Ahead of them the earth had been scorched and layered in ash, and it felt as though someone had cleared the land of foliage intentionally.

The man standing at the far extent was obviously no true human. His face was gaunt and his eyes had an otherworldly and slightly bestial taint to them. He gave a grin which stretched from ear to ear as the Hathran witch stepped forward to address him. "Thou art bold, mortal," he purred, "to step out from thine refuge when so weakened."

The Wychlaran planted the butt of her staff in the ground. "Igathor," she frowned, and by the tone of her voice she seemed disappointing. Perhaps this was some form of betrayal? "Thou knoweth very little," she told him, "and thine ignorance shows. I am far from weakened, and thou treads dangerous ground just by presuming so."

The man barked out a laugh. "How _dare_ thee, bug," he chuckled mirthfully. "How dare thou pretend at cowing _me_ when thou can barely stand? The witch who hast always strutted about as if these forests were her, she who ought to have_ bowed_ before _me _on arrival, she thinks herself mighty? I have tolerated the indignity of thine otherwise harmless posturing, but I grow bored of thee, witch; and thou hast offended me."

"These are bold statements of power from one who believes he must strike me at my weakest," the Wychlaran observed. "Perhaps thou senses I am more than I seem. I doubt thou is as confident as thou claims. Turn back, Igathor. If thou presumeth to betray me, I will not forgive thee."

"I never thought thou would," the man assured her, and then his body turned tar-like and grew rapidly in diameter and length as he resumed what must have been his natural form. Scales protruded from the grime. Horns crested up through it. Teeth formed from the spread maws of dripping ichor.

Igator coiled there, a great serpentine beast, with his tail spiraling behind him for a hundred yards. His jaws were large enough to have swallowed cattle whole, and his mighty scales were so thick that each might have individually served as a man's shield. His fins and whiskers were pitted and tattered, and a horse-like mane of seaweed hair lined the full length of his spine. His tail was a glaive three yards in length, and he sported six antlers befitting the most ancient of elks. He was green: every variety and shade of green. His hair was the blue of algae; his fins were lime; his body was mottled and dripping with moss and marsh grass.

The Thayvian gaped in awe, fascination, and horror. {A Lindwurm...?} He breathed; and he stood up to get a better look because this monster was a _Dragon _and he had never seen a creature so magnificent or terrible in all his life.

_"Did thou think I would forgive thee!?" _Igathor bellowed in Draconic. _"Did thou think I would forgive the harm thou hast done onto my kin!? Look upon me and tremble, witch!"_

The Hathran settled her staff into the ground, and drew a threaded, bone sewing needle from her belt. The tip was hooked. "I tremble not, oh wyrm," she told him, "and that should give thee pause. Gaze upon me and understand that, to take, one must first give. Force my hand and thou will perish here."

_"Such insolence! Such disgusting insolence from a murderer, a pretender, a bug!"_

The witch shook her head and began to murmur and gesture. She was going to face him? She was mad! The Thayvian darted forward with a shout: "No! Run, please! Dragonscale repels magic!"

The witch tensed, but did not stop casting. Her hands shimmered. The dragon swiveled his head around to look at the distraction. _"My, my. What is this? Thou hast a waif of thine own?" _he purred in realization. _"Oh, this will be better. Better than thy death even will be." _He turned towards the young man, who skid to a halt.

There was a rush of blue light, and then the witch held a long pearly white harpoon. The length hummed with waves the color of moonlight. She drew back the weapon. "Run!" she shouted.

The boy stumbled backwards, and tripped over a rock. The Lindwurm grinned, and then slithered straight for him. Over the wet sound of scales on ash, he heard a high-pitched, ghastly wail. The bone lance shot through the air like a streak of white light. IT slammed into the Lindwurm's winding flank, burst out three yards down the coil. The dragon boomed out a surprised roar. The young man gaped.

_How did she hit him? By summoning a magical weapon, fool! To avoid the spell resistance but- but a weapon of such a calibre!? _He grit his teeth and then wormed onto his belly. _Stop looking at it! Stop looking at it, it has a mind-affecting aura! Move! Move!_

Igathor whirled about to stare at the witch, who held on to loops of silvery thread which trailed out to the tail end of the harpoon. Beneath her mask, her eyes were glowing a verdant green. The dragon exhaled a spurt of poisonous yellow fumes.

The young man scrambled to his feet.

_"Thou will regret this,"_ he growled.

The witch jerked on the thread. The harpoon slammed back through the dragon the way it had came, the barbs tearing through flesh and buckling dragonscale. It changed from a lance into a bone needle as it went, and the witch lifted a hand to catch it. It was wet with mildly acidic dragon's blood and tattered bits of flesh, but the first thing she did was put it into her mouth and lick it clean.

The Lindwurm roared out in draconic, and huge thorns and brambles exploded up for dozens of feet between the two casters, twisting as high as the trees with stalks and thorns bigger than a man's forearm. Leaves withered, their energy leaching out to mend the beast's flank. Then he whirled on the Thayvian, who was bolting through the foliage to try and get around the wall of thorns.

The young man heard cracking trees, and the thunderous noise of violent pursuit. A huge trunk crashed to his left, and then to his right. He leaped off a small rise of dirt into the space beneath a tree's roots, and then jets of acid were blowing through the air overhead, dissolving bark, wood, foliage, and animals alike. Trees crumbled every which way. He held silent as thorns, and debris burst up from the falling bodies, and a rain of diffused acid sprinkled down with burning leaves to scald his hands and face.

Then the dragon roared so near it made the young man spin about in panic. Igathor was right there, barreling down on him. The dragon reared up like a serpent, jaws spreading wide as his momentum carried him forward for the kill.

A singular, disturbing, loud,_ ripping_ noise, wet and grotesque, tore audibly through the air.

The dragon shrieked and contorted in surprise. Another ripping sound followed. In shock, the Thayvian saw that the Lindwurm's flesh was peeling back from his belly, up the sides of his flank near where the bone lance had struck it. A woman's chanting echoed through the forest. The Hathran strode calmly forward. She had the bone needle clutched between her teeth, and her chin was burned in rivulets where dragon blood had railed over her was holding a dagger flush against her bare arm, and had already flayed a square inch of her own flesh off. The severed skin hung curling from the far edge of the wound.

_"Wh-what have you-?!" _Igathor sputtered.

The Mulan boy stood there, eyes wide, mouth agape. As he watched, the witch cut another inch of her own skin off.

The dragon cried out as another tearing sound rippled over their heads. His flanks gave off disgusting crackles and pops and his scales writhed as if possessed by a will of their own.

She cut the scrap of flesh free, and her arm by then was bleeding profusely.

With a scream to end all screams, the dragon's skin unfolded from the musculature of his body, and tore itself free in its entirety. It came loose with all his scales, all his hair, the exterior layer of his antlers, and the outer keratin of his nails.

Igathor flailed madly in pain, leaving splatters of blood and grime all over the earth. He began to call on healing magic, which sapped the trees around him of life and caused their fruits and leaves to decay and fall from the air.

_You are not a druid, _the Thayvian realized, covering his mouth and looking from the skinned Lindwurm to the Hathran. _You are an archmagus...? _You_ are a-a _necromancer_?_

_"My scales!" _the Lindwurm screamed. _"My scales! My flesh! I will unmake you! I will UNMAKE YOU!"_

The witch held up the scrap of flesh and breathed over it. The detached skin, which until that moment had been dangling about in the remaining tree branches, suddenly contorted. Dark energies sailed up to it from the earth. Ashe and dissolved, drained, or decayed plant matter floated up to it. The skin writhed and twisted and flailed madly. Then it moved as if possessed, flaring out like some kind of octopus and grasping onto the branches, its scales twisted to point outwards like a hedgehog's spines.

Igathor, who was regenerating at least the interior layer of his flesh, whirled on them. He took in a deep breath. The witch tied her flayed skin into a knot.

The dragon's reanimated skin leaped down onto his head. There it wrapped about his throat like a rope or constrictor snake, and pulled itself taut. The dragon choked, sputtered, and coughed. He twisted and contorted under the hold, and then lifted up his glaived tail to try and hack the skin free. He cut the skin; and he cut himself worst. He bled out, and the skin smeared itself greedily in his fluids. He writhed. Then poisonous vapors burst out of his newly forming pores and his cloaca.

Igathor wove back and forward for a moment. Then his eyes rolled and he collapsed to the ground with a boom.

The witch did not speak. She walked past the young man. She strode calmly through the forest, though her legs and arms were shaking. She walked all the way up to the dragon's mighty jaws, where he struggled vainly against suffocation and death. For a long moment, the witch merely stared at him. Then she shook her head and reached out to his brow. "What a senseless waste of life," she said, before murmuring in draconic.

The Lindwurm flailed. He lifted up his tail one final time. The young man cried out in warning. The dragon began to scream, but never finished. His breath died away as his body sloughed apart; His bones burst open, and his organs tumbled away, and all the veins and tubes which had connected them detached themselves. His muscular layers peeled open and apart from one another. The glaive dripped free of his skeleton, and plummeted into the earth he'd once rested on.

She dropped the piece of flesh. The dragon's skin lost its reanimating force, and unraveled. Where once there had been a dragon, all that remained now were giblets.

A long moment passed in silence. Then the Hathran turned slowly to look at the young man, and her eyes glowed vibrant green from the depths of her featureless and bone-white mask. "I told thee to stay inside," she murmured. "I told thee to stay where it was safe..."

The Thayvian swallowed past a hard lump in his throat. His palms were moist, and his whole body was quaking. Somewhere along the way, he had even pissed himself. Despite all of these things, he took a step towards her, and then another, and another. "Are you okay?" he whispered.

She shook her head. "No," she admitted. Then her eyes closed, and her legs gave out from under her.


	17. Stop the Bleeding

The young man staggered forward and dropped into the ash and crisp leaves at the Wychlaran's side. He leaned shakily over her, touching her skin. She was ice cold.

_A mage. A necromancer._

"B-bleeding. Stop the bleeding," he whispered to himself, as this time he knew what to do. He pressed his palms firmly over her arm wound. His stomach felt bottomless, or filled with butterflies.

Then the memories hit him.

Hard.

They built up behind his eyes like a searing tidal wave; a warband of screams; demanding his recollection. He cried out in shock at them, as Samhain's ghosts and the smell of magic _forced_ them through the fragile membranes of his healing psyche and dragged them brutally out into the open.

They were agonizing; not because of what they contained, but because of how alien they sat in his mind.

-he could feel the chaos and the thrill of battle; he could hear the _screams, the screams, the unearthly screams. _He saw the booms of lightning, and heard the thunderous crackle of falling concrete and stone-

-wraiths were in the halls. He exterminated those servants who had soaked the ghoul assault-

-retreating through the halls. Things had gone wrong, so wrong. His heart was racing, but not with excitement. Not after what he'd seen happen to-

-saw Leonlai's face, with her look of contemptuous, cocksure fury as she took the kill shot on their assailant. Pain. His vision was blurred. He lay there; the smell of burnt flesh in the air; the interloper's, and his own-

-stepped over him and kept going. She was older; but he was male. In her position, he would have done the same-

-his heartbeat was erratic. It began to slow-

It stopped.

_I came into this world as a devil, born to a prestigious and well-respected family of devils. __I died. __And that was the end of my tale._

Reality came back to him, along with silence and clarity.

He felt his Hathran's pulse under his fingertips, and the texture of her clothing. Not silk, but fur and hair. His hands had moved of their own accord, independently from his mind, and he found that he had somehow staunched the bleeding. That did not yet mean she was safe. _I need to get her inside. Now. _

It occurred to him, with sudden and startling clarity, that he could _fix_ this. And then he felt emotional energy welling up within his chest cavity and along his arms where he was touching her. Had she not shown him everything he needed to know? His mind ricocheted rapidly between each herb and jar and preparation; as he mentally tracked down where each one of them was within the cottage.

_First, the wound. Pressure. Then, heat; clothing; blankets. A draught to replenish lost fluids. Next, proper cleaning. Then, finalized dressing. She is too heavy to carry; I will have to drag her as best I can._

The sound of bleating goats nearly sent him into a panic, and he looked frantically around for signs of danger. When he saw nothing, he drew his belt knife free and crouched low over her prone form; his anchor point; his magus. Nothing was coming from the north, nor the east, nor- He felt a rush of wind and lifted his head in alarm. A large, ominous, and winged creature was gliding into the clearing.

A sledge dangled from its back feet.


	18. Sharing Names

When the Dusk Dragon awoke, it was to a throbbing headache, an empty stomach, and the bemused realization she'd contracted a menagerie.

The first and most obvious present was Nüdnisé, her companion, who was curled around the back of her head. The dire bat's torso was the size of an adult man's, and her wings were so large that one of them currently draped over nearly the entire length of the bed.

But then in addition to Nüdnisé, there was goat on the witch's left, and a juvenile Thayvian boy tucked under her right shoulder with his arm flung across her midsection. The Wychlaran was inclined to laugh incredulously at all this, until she recalled the events that had led to such conditions. Then she winced at the chilled exhaustion in her bones.

_Oh. Oh that aches._

The witch breathed in a soft hiss and then lifted her hand to rest her fingertips against her fosterling's hair. Their clothing had been washed and hung up to dry; she had been redressed, and he was again in clothing much too large for his slender frame. It made him look smaller than he was.

For a moment she felt endeared. Then a fluttering sensation rippled through her chest, and she felt frightened. "Thou did not flee from me," she whispered, suddenly moved by his closeness.

He shifted, and blinked slowly awake. When he saw her, he sat quickly upright. "You are awake," he realized, pushing blankets off of himself.

She shifted and winced, nodding. "Thou tended to me?"

"Hold on, don't move." He clambered off of the bed and hurried over to remove a kettle from where it had been keeping warm on simmering coals. As she looked around, she saw bandages, blood, scissors and pots of herbs scattered all over the nearby tables. He came back with the water and made her fresh the; not blueberry, but with a premade sachet for warmth and health.

She made to sit up and he reached down to help her. Nüdnisé shifted and then crawled sleepily up under her neck and shoulders to support her, licking nervously at her neck. The witch sipped her tea thankfully for a moment. Her fosterling sat beside her.

The witch watched him. When she had taken a few sips she lowered the mug and frowned. "Thou looks at me differently now. But not with the fear or revulsion I expected..."

The young man peered down at her almost curiously. After a moment, he shook his head. "You saved my life from a rampaging dragon, at the cost of your own health... all while presuming I'd be so ungrateful I'd abandon you there to die?"

She shifted. "Well I did not count on fainting," she retorted a little harshly. "And thou should not have been outside in the first place! Did I not warn thee profusely? Why was it this time thou chose to disobey me? Thou could be dead at this moment had I acted slower or with less conviction!"

The boy smiled at her radiantly, such that she could see his teeth; and she thought how she had never seen him smile like that before. "Well," he said matter-of-factly, leaning back to cross his legs and watching her with shuttered eyes. "I did not count on you being able to skin a Lindwurm with a sewing needle, _senneta_. I am prepared to forgive you for fainting if you are prepared to forgive me for ignorance."

The witch blinked rapidly, staring over at him in surprise. He seemed almost plucky, as if layers of gloom had been torn down from over top his head. Startled, she lifted a hand up to him, and brushed her knuckles thoughtfully against his cheek. His expression softened. He watched her face intently.

"Thou doest not fear the witch in the woods," she wondered at him. "I am not accustomed to the tolerance of menfolk."

His brows furrowed gently. He looked from Nüdnisé to her almost thoughtfully. Then he shook his head and lifted the blankets up higher to keep her warm. "I adore you, _senneta_," he told her. "Thank you for taking me into your household that day. I do not mean for reviving me, exactly; but for letting me stay to work. You saved my life."

The Dusk Dragon frowned and shook her head. "What is the meaning of 'senneta'?"

The young man shook his head. "I say it to mean 'teacher,'" he told her.

She did not seem to know what to feel about that. After a long moment, and in a very gentle voice, she abruptly asked: "What is thy name?"

He paused. The question must have startled him, because he looked around as if searching for the answer. Indeed it startled her that it had never previously seemed important to ask. A moment later, he turned back to her and answered: "Homen." Then after a brief delay, he reached out and started cleaning up pots of salve. "Is there something I should call you?"

"Thou may call me 'senneta.' Or thou may call me what other Rashemi call me," she told him softly, lost in thought.

"What do they call you?" he prodded gently, realizing she was very tired and needed to rest again soon.

"The Dusk Dragon," she explained; "_Sheilaktar_."


	19. Stick Fighting

A head appeared in his vision, silhouetted against the light. "Did neither thy father nor thy mother set out to teach thee basic stick fighting as a child?" the Wychlaran asked him, leaning over him with a grin. Her off arm was still recovering from its necromantic exertions, and he'd helped her to bind it up in a sling till it mended. "I am not exactly moving at my fastest these days..."

The young man winced slightly, and not because of his bruises or ego. A week ago, words like 'mother' or 'father' would have passed over his head without sensation.

But since the incident with the Lindwurm, previously dormant memories had been rising up to bother him with unsettling frequency. They were unplesant to imbibe largely because they did not feel as if they belonged to him.

The Hathran offered him a hand up, and he took it with a grunt. He steadied himself and then looked down at the walking sticks they were each holding. "I might be better with a dagger than a staff," he admitted.

"Well then, pick up a smaller stick and show me," she decided, and looked about to find a dagger-sized implement for herself. When they had both been appropriately rearmed, he moved to engage her.

She did not block him. Instead, she dropped her own weapon, reached out towards him, captured his wrist, twisted the bones, forced him to release the stick, and hauled him down onto his back in the dirt.

Homen blinked up at her dazedly. "You are better than me at everything," he concluded firmly.

Sheilaktar laughed. "I am considerably older than thee!" she pointed out. "And rougher. I have all thine years and then half as many again, and speant many hunting for my own meals..."

As he thought of how he had speant his years, the Thayvian involuntarily realized there was a large subset of skills at which he was likely much more proficient than his Hathran. None were talents he wished to boast about.

He took her hand as she helped him up again. "Do you still hunt?" he wondererd. "Isn't that different from trapping?"

"It is," she agreed. "And I do from time to time, when I have need for different leather, or antler, or when there are more mouths to feed."

"What weapon do you use then?" he queried. "Or does your companion help you?"

"Nüdnisé is a vegetarian," she explained, "and hasn't a hunting instinct in her body. She would have to hibernate through the winter for lack of fruit had she not me to can peaches for her. No, I use the javalin." Then she realized that Homen had never actually left the cottage grounds nor seen the rest of the Orchards. She simply hadn't let him. "If it interests thee, I can teach thee to hunt."

He nodded eagerly; this was certainly an important skill to alleviate his helplessness.

"Very well. But then thou are to do as I bid thee, and to follow my strictest order when out in the Orchards! I will tolerate no foolish heroics, dare-devillry, or showing off; and certainly not from a petite Foreign whelp who could be felled by a stiff wind."

Homan smiled then, and almost slyly at that. "You have my word that I will follow your example faithfully, senneta."

She eyed him with hooded eyes, a brow raised. "Art thou implying something?"

He smiled quietly at the ground. "Of course not, senneta! I shall endeavor to mimic your every caution."

Sheilaktar could not help herself. She struggled for a moment to remain glaring reproachfully at him. Then a grin split across her face. "Fair enough," she chuckled. "But thou art going to be terrible with the javalin, I warn thee now."


	20. Small Questions

Snow had come overnight. They had gone to bed with colored leaves still dangling from the trees, and woken up to find a four inch coating of white had blanketed the land. The flakes were still falling.

"Senneta, did you learn magic from books?" the boy wondered aloud. He was glad to be turned away from her then, because he felt nervous.

Sheilaktar glanced at him curiously but was distracted by the sight of the flurries out the window before him. "In part. Why doest thou ask?" Her voice was casual.

Still, Homen bit his lower lip, forcing his hand to be steady as he worked on the buckskin gloves he'd been making. Obviously he could not outright inquire whether she drew her power from the arcane or divine magic spheres. After a moment, he gave a shrug. "Oh, I thought all wizards had books."

"Witches have a greater oral tradition than _wizards,_" was her haughty reply. "Life cannot be experienced through books. Mm. I want to check my snares," Sheilaktar told him abruptly, coming up beside him to peer out into the white. "This will get worse by evening."

"How could this be worse?" the young man asked doubtfully, as he finished up the stitches on his new gloves. He was very proud of them, and they had provided ample distraction from his questionable questions.

His Hathran gave him a look suggesting he ought not to be tempting fate. "Clearly thou hast lived thine life in warmer climates than these." That made him bashful. "Thou may come with me."

He perked up immediately. Then, perhaps worried she might change her mind, he flit quickly over to his bed and began pulling his coat and his new rabbit fur boots on. The Wychlaran eyed him with amusement and reached out to her cloak. When she turned about she found him fully kit for outdoor activity, complete with his quiver of javalins.

"And what doest thou think thou will be doing with those?" she asked him.

"Just in case? For practice only?" he requested hopefully, and it was times like these he reminded her of his youth.

She sighed in acquiescence, trying to fasten her cloak with one hand. He shooed her fingers away and did it for her. She grumbled. "I am perfectly capable of handling my own cloak," the witch groused.

"You don't have to," he answered in his concise way, and then straightened out her shoulders. Briefly, he looked up at her face to see if she was ready to head out.

She scowled and ruffled his hair. He ducked a little and then smiled up through the attention. "Fine then, brazen child; keep up, and keep thy voice down. Not everything sleeps in winter. Make sure the goats have water before we leave."

"Yes, senneta," he obeyed, hurrying out the door. Sheilaktar watched him go and then glanced over to where four well-worn leather tomes on herbalism lay tucked up against pots and potions. They were the only books in her home. Her eyes narrowed, and she spayed her fingers thoughtfully over her mouth for a moment.

_Thou were asking me to explain why I have no obvious spellbook..._

She considered the scalds she'd found over his abdomen the day she'd carried him home, and once more she wondered at their origins.


	21. Dear

Homen set to plucking the duck with an excited fervor. Sheilaktar leaned against the mantelpiece, amused and still shaking her head.

"I still cannot believe thou actually hit that," she laughed. "Nor can I determine whether thee've a steady throwing arm or merely fool's luck."

He looked up at her briefly; just long enough for her to see the joyful pride on his face. Then he looked quickly down to his work, smiling. "Can we make soup?" he hoped.

"With cream," she agreed, standing up to fetch ingredients, "and sweet potatoes. Where have we put the celery?"

"Second jar on the top shelf to the right," he told her.

"Thank you, dear."

'Dear' was a new word. And a nice one, he thought. He plucked the bird and set water to boil. Nüdnisé roused from her afternoon nap and reached out to nibble the edge of his coat. He found her a few jarred cherries to nibble on.

Sheilaktar prepared the vegetables, glancing at him occasionally. "Homen," she called after a bit, because it was unfair to leave him ill informed. "I am going to be traveling for Midwinter. It is a very important day for Rashemi."

He looked to her thoughtfully. "Will you be gone long?"

"A week," she told him gently. "Midwinter, The Feast of the Mother, is a time of unity among the Wychlaran. Thousands will gather in Mulsantir to trade, weave stories, and participate in the ancient rituals of the season. It is a time for celebration even the most ornery of woodland hermits do not excuse themselves from."

The boy was quiet a moment. Then he nodded. "I cannot come?" he made sure.

"Not unless thou wants to become the Feast's main course," she teased with a wink.

He must have known she was joking, but he did not smile. "I understand, senneta. I will look after the cottage."

When Homen returned to preparing the duck, Sheilaktar watched his body language. He may have affected to appear calm about her departure, but his stiff gestures suggested anxiety or distress. It wasn't her imagination; he genuinely feared her absence. She knew she had been right to leave him sleeping draughts in the past, then.

Perhaps he simply did not want to be left alone. But then she wondered why he feared solitude more than he feared ghosts or Lindwurms. Perhaps he had lost someone while fleeing Thay, or multiple someones. He'd mentioned seeing ghosts during Samhain.

Sheilaktar frowned. Learning to deal with loss was a right of passage for any young person's transition to adulthood... But she was thankful her little fosterling had not ended up facing the world entirely alone. He was sweet tempered, and hard working, and a good child. By fate or fortune, she was glad she had saved him that day.

The Hathran looked down at her peeled potatoes. He would be alright in her absence, she assured herself. It was only a week, and her cottage was the safest location in all the Orchards.

Though Homen was not the only one who had previously been alone...


	22. That was an accident?

As Midwinter drew closer, Homen grew predictably agitated. He spent considerable effort trying to hide the signs; perhaps he was ashamed he could not keep his emotions in check. But the gloomy cloud following him grew steadily more obvious, and Sheilaktar set to thinking about how she might help him through it.

For her very first step, she continued to take him out of the cottage, even when the weather was poor and there was little chance the two of them would find game. She taught him about the dangers of the cold, how to build an impromptu shelter, and how to start an emergency fire. They wove a pair of wicker snow shoes for him, so that even tall drifts could not keep them inside.

It seemed to help, but now and then she caught sight of a dour expression on his face as he scanned the forest floor for tracks. "Homen," she called one morning. The boy looked up at her, but as usual he did not meet her gaze.

"It will only be a week," she reminded him.

His expression darkened. He looked away quickly and said nothing.

Sheilaktar tilted her head to the side. "I will be leaving the Orchards and traveling to one of the safest, tamest, and most guarded places of Rasheman. Thou will be in more danger in the cottage than I will be among my sisters." _Er, but really thou will be in no danger at all. Damn it, now I've set my mind to worrying..._

"I know," he admitted to her, but he did not look like actually he felt any better. Stumped by how to reassure him, she put an arm about his shoulders. The touch startled him, and he looked hesitantly up at her again.

"Do not be so hard on thyself," she told him gently. "To feel is human, and it will not help to pretend otherwise. All things mend with time."

"Thank you. But..." He hesitated. It seemed he wished to point out how little she really knew about him, but at the same time was reluctant to speak of such topics. He shook his head.

"But...?" she prompted. "Thou doest not think I can imagine the color or tone of what might plague thee?" she wondered.

Homen said nothing.

She squeezed him gently and looked out at the forest. "When I was a young girl, my mother led me out into the wilderness on a picnic. She must have poisoned the food so that I would sleep. When I woke up, she was nowhere to be found. It took me a long time to realize she had left me out there to die because she'd lacked the stomach to smother me."

Gray eyes rose frowning to her own. She knew she had struck home; Homen rarely looked directly at her. "Your affinity for necromancy is natural?" he caught on.

"Some might even call it _un_natural," the witch agreed with a nod. "I must have done something to frighten her, but I do not recall it; I was too young."

"How did you survive?" he wondered.

"Oh, that is a long story," Sheilaktar confessed. "Life provided for me. Often I lived in the mud and reeds as a wild child, befriending pixies and bogles, and causing all form of mischief and misfortune to hapless woodsmen. At one point a Night Hag took me in. She was my mentor in necromancy and the herbal arts, and knew all forms of magic others might call taboo for one reason or another. She was a sweet creature. For a hag."

"What happened?"

Sheilaktar looked at him with hooded eyes. "A magical accident. She ended up burned alive within her warren. I can still hear her screams and the sound of her flesh and eyes popping, and then the crackling of the rafters as the whole building collapsed."

He stared at her. Then he looked away. "That was an _accident_?" he asked quietly.

The witch smirked ironically. "We are all born clean, given shape by our caregivers, and then loosed to make mistakes until the day we die. Some mistakes are lucky, and others are unforgivable. But with each we must grow, change, and move onward; and in this manner we hope to eventually reach maturity." She patted his shoulder and then withdrew her hand. "And anyone who says otherwise is foolish, a liar, and dangerous to our health."

Homen considered this for a moment, watching his feet. She gestured they should continue walking, and he followed. "How did you become a Wychlaran, then?" he asked after a short while.

"That might be a story for another time," she suggested. "Homen, whatever thou feels right now is most likely natural. And healthy. Thou will only be able to let go of it slowly; but as thou doest, thou will become something else entirely. Perhaps something thou liketh better. The key is to never stop growing, and therefore ironically to never stop making mistakes."

"I think there are some mistakes I'd prefer to avoid," he told her quietly.

"Yes, well," she sighed, "as do we all. Still, I am old enough to know we make quite a few of them whether we want to or not. One's failings are no easy thing to be at peace with." She glanced back at him. "Don't presume thou art alone in that."

He nodded, but said nothing. Sheilaktar frowned. A long moment passed in silence. Then he turned his head slightly towards her. "What is a bogle?" he asked. She smiled.


	23. In Dreams

The world was a quagmire of images; and filled with the stench of rotting flesh; as dreams came and went without anchor.

"There they are," hissed a voice as time and place settled within the dreamscape. "Slowly now; the girl has a reputation, but the pup's a wizard the same as any."

* * *

{Leonlai-!} Homen's voice spiked with sudden hysteria; because he already knew she was going to take the shot; because he would have taken it in their situation, or in her shoes. {Don't-! Leon-_Senneta_-!}

Loud. Pain. Deaf tingling. Numbness.

* * *

_You bitch... you bitch... You left me to die... _

It was easy to be angry, but impossible to find fault; he would have done the exact same thing. When fighting a Red Wizard, why would anyone have presumed it a valid defensive tactic to use another Red Wizard as a human shield? Because they were _siblings_?

Clearly, the blackguard had not been Thayvian.

A darkness settled in like a great and crushing pressure, accompanying his deafness into a deep and liquid pool of non-sensation. In his last flicker of lucidity, he knew he had stopped breathing.

* * *

He was in pain, pain like silver fire.

His head was tilted back, and he was looking up into the face of an old and wrinkled crone. Her hair was a nest of whispy gray, and her bosom was heavy with age. She was Rashemi, or a mutt, and most certainly a slave.

Where was he? The leaking ceiling and poorly constructed walls suggested he was not even in the palace. Then he remembered the attack, and all the things which had happened within its once inalienable walls...

{Why?} he tried to say, though he had no specific question. He sputtered blood. She wiped his mouth and then, when he had stopped coughing for just a moment, she pushed a vial to his lips. Beyond thought or fear, he drank of it.

* * *

He looked up at the bodies of slaves strung up and thrown over the fortress walls, rotting in the open with their bodies partially drawn such that bits and pieces were missing. The crows and buzzards were beginning to swarm around them in the hot autumn sun.

It was not the first time he had looked up to those walls, and seen the bodies of slaves or prisoners of war dangling there; those who could not be made use of by Surthay's masters.

Distantly, he recalled that he had once put several there himself.

* * *

{I am already dead.} He hadn't eaten since he'd awoken.

_Leonlai, they tell me he strung you up by your entrails, like a puppet. That he sewed your mouth shut and put buttons where your eyes were. Is it true, or are they weaving stories in mental preparation for the culling that's sure to pass?_

_How could you be dead while I am still here, even for a short while? You were better, and you proved it._

{There is nowhere to hide. When they find you, you will be dead too.}

The crone ushered him along. {There is one place, and that is where you must go. Somewhere he and his cannot follow.}

* * *

{To say the water will be cold, is to do it a disservice. The northern shore will be as the Styx. But make it there, and no one will follow.}

The water would be a quiet return to darkness. Encompassing and dark and heavy. At least in this manner, there would be no coming back from death.

{Why save me?} he asked of his reflection, and his breath joined the curtains of fog.

{I suckled you as a babe,} the crone told him. {I was your wet nurse.}

He did not know her name. He could not have recognized her face. The only reason he knew she belonged to his family was because their coat of arms had been branded into her skin.

{It's as simple as that?} he breathed whispers into the silence.

{It's as simple as that.}

* * *

{This is as far as any boat can go.}

{No one has ever made this swim.}

The crone shook her head and looked wistfully off into the fog. {No, there are those that do,} she told him. {I did once, when I was very young. Then as now, under the Midnight Hour,} she told him, and did not explain how or why she had returned.

He frowned at he, she who had been little more than aged and curling wallpaper of an underutilized room. She turned her gaze back to him.

{Clear your head of everything. All goals. All fears. All failings. All joy. There is nothing in the world: no shore, no water, no sky; no kraaken beneath nor gods above; just the next breaststroke.}

* * *

Cold.

Dark and Cold.

Timeless, Silent, Blindness.

The stars, or perhaps willo-the-wisps, glowed blue down through the fog, and reflected blue up from the waters.


	24. Lullaby

He sat upright with a sudden hiss into the freezing air of midnight. His skin was slick with sweat, and he was shaking. His skin, muscles, and bones tingled across the side of his chest and down to the extent of his fingers. He grasped at himself, kneading the flesh and willing sensations to fade; as images and thoughts writhed behind the_ pressure_ in his head.

He could see his sister. And, too, he could see his Wychlaran; pale and cold on the ground and surrounded by Lindwurm giblets, her arm slicked with blood.

A guttural noise of dismay and pain heaved forth from his lips. His heart was racing. He stumbled, uncoordinated, out of bed.

The floor was as ice; the open spaces of the cottage were bitter. He clawed his way through the room; past tables, vases, and gourds. He felt heavy bear fur under his fingertips, and fished for the edge of the skin. For a moment, he doubted what he was about to do; he _feared_ it. Then he feared solitude _more_.

Sheilaktar woke up with a start to the sensation of fingers touching her. She jumped slightly, turning slightly to see the boy had crawled onto her bed. "Homen?" she asked groggily. "What art thou-?"

He snaked up against her side and clutched hold of her mid section like a vice. His arms were trembling violently. Suprised, she rolled herself towards him and placed a hand hesitantly on his shoulder. The boy wormed closer, smothering his face into her chest. The Wychlaran's brows furrowed in bewilderment. He was shaking like a leaf; Shaking from head to toe! She'd never seen him in such a fright!

"What is wrong, child?" she whispered, confused.

He didn't look at her. A choked and strangled sob worked its way up his throat, and his fingers kneaded into her robes. He tried to gasp in air with which to steady himself, but a messy whimper tore it out from him again.

Sheilaktar's eyes widened. For a moment she had no idea what to do; and she was quiet as her fosterling's composure dissolved, and as he broke down into pathetic weeping.

"Homen..." The witch scooped both arms quickly about his back, sat herself up, and pulled him tightly into her bosom.

He slumped into her, and cried: He cried openly and loudly, like a frightened toddler clinging to its mother. Tear tracks made his cheeks puffy and pink. His brow flushed with the emotional heat of his exertions. She pulled up her sleeve and dabbed gingerly at his face. Then, when it became clear he would not be recovering soon, she wrapped both arms back around him and rocked him.

The cottage was silent but for his sobs.

So she began humming a lullaby.


	25. Hug

Homen seemed calm when morning came; though Sheilaktar was a little groggy owed to having her sleep interrupted, and might not have been the best judge. But he went about his usual routine as if nothing had happened; and as usual he was a dear about it. He revived the fire, put on some tea, and began crafting some hot breakfast.

As she blinked her eyes sleepily at him, Sheilaktar was not precisely fooled; she had been planning to leave for Mulsantir the day after, and now she suspected her Mulan child would unravel (again) soon after she was gone. _Something is_ _hounding him, and it had been worse these last few days than ever before._ She grunted, heaving her legs out of bed and yawning. Then she rubbed her face and started pulling her indoor shoes on to ward off the chill. _Still upset, I see. Oh, anxious child; silly, anxious child; what plagues thee? How do I get thee to talk to me? Thine mood is becoming communicable, and I am less adjusted to it than thou._

Perhaps she might cancel the trip, and endure her sister's condemnations and the general disapproval of her 'community.' It would not be the first time she had butted heads with other Wychlaran over tradition. On the other hand: to skip such an important ritual, without any warning and without time to train a replacement, would be a grievous injustice onto not only the celebration but also onto the Mother Goddess herself.

Stumped, and short on brainpower before breakfast, Sheilaktar shook her head. Perhaps it was best if they waited to have this conversation until after the solstice. Once she returned, she would have adequate time to speak with and comfort him. But how long was too long to wait? He had been nigh unconsolable just hours ago.

The witch stood and approached the fire place to take a second look at how her fosterling was doing. Homen looked to her and then away again. She raised a brow expectantly, but all he said was: "Almost done," and he was talking about nothing more complex than breakfast.

Sheilaktar placed her hands on her hips, and eyed him incredulously for a moment. She looked about the cottage, rubbed her face, and breathed a grumbling prayer to the mother for patience. Sensing that he'd done something wrong, the boy looked uncertainly towards her. She chuckled.

"Come here, child," she told him, reaching out to him. He blinked and then straightened up as if in alarm as she reached out to him and put her arms about his narrow shoulders. "Well? Come here."

He looked as if he had no idea what to do, but at her prompting he chose to scoot closer to her. She folded all one hundred and twenty pounds of him into a big hug, crossing her arms about his chest and holding his back tight to her bosom. He was a little heavier. One hundred and thirty, perhaps? Bah; still little more than a plucked bird! She leaned her head over his shoulder, and smiled at him. As usual, he did not make eye contact. In fact he looked very nervous.

"Now, listen here sweet creature: I am not going to abandon thee. Or die. I am Wychlaran and thou should have more respect for my capabilities than that." He swallowed and made to apologize, but she lifted a hand to hush him. Then she raised her chin, pressed a kiss firmly to his black hair, and squeezed him. "I do not mind thy company nor thy Mulan blood; and however long thou wishes to remain here in the Orchards, I shall keep thee. In fact, thou has made for a most indisputably pleasant housemate, and I could not ask for a better helper. If thou must linger here years before thy footing feels solid again, then I shall enjoy tutoring thee for all of them."

At that, he did look back at her face, if only for a moment. The speech had clearly startled him, and she had expected that; but there was also an unnerved expression on his face which looked wholly out of place.

"What is the matter? Thou look as if thou swallowed a lemon."

He shifted slightly, and looked at the floorboards. "No one has ever held me before," he told her in a very small voice.

Sheilakter raised a brow in disbelief. After a moment, she turned him about and touched his chin. "Thy parents never hugged thee? Grandparents? Siblings?" He was quiet. She was startled by this revelation. "Neither thy friends nor peers nor anyone at all? Has thou not so much as smooched a pretty damsel?" He shook his head. She considered this moment longer, and what it said of the terrors which had provoked him to climbing into her bed. Then, giving a disbelieving shake of her head, she squeezed him into her again.

Homen stumbled slightly. Then he breathed in deeply and pressed himself into the witch, slipping his arms about her stocky waist. He didn't know what to say to the woman who had carved out a place for him in her country, her home, and her life. After a bit, he told her: "Thank you."

She grunted, and effected to sound a little blustery: "Well. I _am_ a necromancer. I have at times encountered the unfortunate side-effects of hug-deprivation. I can afford to part with one, or perhaps two. Out of gracious and magnanimous generosity, of course."

A weak smile graced his face. He hugged her a little more tightly, and buried his face into her robes and leathers. She caressed over his hair, her nails trailing soothingly along his scalp.


	26. Packing Butter

They spent most of the day packing for her trip.

And indeed, it turned out they had quite a lot to pack. Sheilaktar filled up no fewer than three large bags and a small traveling trunk with ingredients. She packed spell components, potions, bottled essences, dried herbs, jars of perserved spices, and all manner of spell components. The Dead LIndwurm, in particular, had given her quite a large number of extra parcels to bring along!

Watching her leave with vessel after vessel, wheel after wheel, package after package, Homen wondered how she intended to transport so much. He came out to see that she had placed the bags upon their chopping wood and erected a small awning to protect them. No doubt this was her attempt to keep items she was taking segregated from items she planned not to, so that nothing got left behind.

Homen had expected her to bring some things for barter. And indeed, when he'd gone out with her to watch her harvest or preserve what remained of the Lindwurm giblets, he had also expected a number of these items to be traded. What he had not expected was everything else she chose to bring: including a great number of wood, crystal, and leather-crafted items, and an enormous assortment of jams and sauces.

"How do you plan to carry so much?" he wondered aloud.

Sheilaktar smirked and went inside. She came out moments later with what appeared to be a saddle, and she settled it down atop the bags. "In style," she told him slyly, and he realized that was all he would get from her until the morrow. Perhaps she intended to work magic?

The idea of magic did not leave him anxious. It left him feeling quiet; happy, but sad at the same time; resigned.

"Be a dear and pack me some butter," she told him. Butter, Homen now well knew, was one of Sheilaktar's favorite foods. It ended up in each and every one of their meals in some form or another, and there were times he wondered if she might die of starvation were the gods to curse her with an allergy towards dairy. He nodded and went off to comply with her whim.


	27. Homen Odesseiron

It was late, and Sheilaktar was already dosing when Homen settled down his broom, came up beside her, and sat upon the edge of her bed. The witch stirred slightly as she registered his presence. She opened her eyes and looked curiously up at him. He was looking away from her.

"I do not mean to disturb you when you have such a long trip tomorrow," he told her.

She waved a few fingers dismissively.

He looked down at his hands and ventured: "I was wondering if I might tell you something?"

"I am listening," she agreed sleepily.

He hesitated. "I am not sure I will be able to tell it all if you ask question in between..."

"I will not interrupt," she promised.

He took in a slow breath, rubbing his hands together and looking out at the cottage. For a moment he was quiet, and Sheilaktar almost dosed again. She shifted slightly to keep herself awake. When he began speaking, his voice was soft and did not waver. "I swam the final length of Mulsantir. An old Rashemi slave took me out into the water. It was the only way I might live. I told her it was impossible, and she answered me not to think about anything but the next breaststroke."

_Oh. Oh, now? _Sheilaktar realized, her eyes widening as she watched the boy. He was not shaking. She wanted to dissuade him from what surely was about to be a very emotional outpouring; but then she had just promised not to interrupt. As she tried to decide how to react, he kept speaking.

"My family was wiped out. It was a betrayal from within, instigated by one of my uncles who perceived that my immediate family and their supporters could no longer stop him.

"In secret, he had ascended to lich hood, and that gave him the power and security he needed to assault us. And he was ruthless. A Mohrg, I think, killed and devoured my mother. My father fell to the ghouls. My youngest brother, who was only three, was swallowed whole by a ghoul horse. And my other siblings no doubt perished similarly.

"I fled with my elder sister, who had been my turtor, and who was forced to strike me down to hit a target behind me. Then she left me there. I died in that place. I stopped breathing, and I think my heart stopped.

"But that Rashemi crone dragged me out from under the battle and resuscitated me, for no reason other than she had been my wetnurse. I didn't even know her. The only reason I could tell she had been our slave was because she bore our brand; Our coat of arms; a boar's head."

_A boar? The only standard I know of which bears a boar is the-_

He wet his lips and kept speaking, and now he sounded nervous and his voice was quick: "My full name is Homen Nadezhda Odesseiron, of the ruling family of Surthay. I was my parent's second eldest child and the oldest boy. Soon, I might have been named heir to the tharchion.

"The day he attacked, my family had been throwing a celebration in my honor. I had gone through the final and most arduous of tests; I had survived my apprenticeship and the academy. It was a time for feasting and rest; as all of Thay's opportunities were open to me.

Homen took a deep breath and then managed the worst part: "It was the day we, as a family, celebrated that I had finally become a Red Wizard of Thay."

A silence- sharp and poignant- stretched across the cottage then. It was almost painful the ears. The courage which had filled him up to speak to her had all but evaporated. When she said nothing, he could not bring himself to look back at her. He had proof she was awake; he had felt her prop herself up on her elbows. He didn't want to see what expression she was wearing.

"If you feel it necessary to deal with me differently than you have, I will understand," he told her, slaving to keep his voice steady. "My life has always been in your hands and I-I wanted to tell you how grateful I am. And... and to explain... to explain why I've been so- ...I just wanted to implore you to come back safely. That is all."

He stood up and crossed the cottage unsteadily and swiftly. The floor seemed longer than usual, and the air more bitter. With the state of perpetual war in existence between Red Wizards and Wychlarans, he almost wondered if he might be blown apart on the spot. But nothing happened. He crawled into his bed, and pulled the blankets over his head; and the silence remained deafening.


	28. Get Up

"Get up."

Sheilaktar's voice was rough and commanding as she tossed the blankets off from over him. By the dim lighting, it was barely dawn. Homen shifted in confusion, as he was not used to being woken in this manner.

"_Up_."

He recalled the evening before with a jolt, and then quickly did as she bade him. No sooner had he stood than she grasped his arm and propelled him firmly to the cottage doorstep. Homen stumbled to keep up with her and then blinked at what he beheld. Nudisne was poised outside the cottage, but she had been grown to many times her usual size. Her torso was larger than a heavy war charger's, and in fact may have rivaled a small elephant's. Her enormous wings propped her off the ground at present, but fully spread they would have been unbelievably large. Sheilaktar had fitted her with a saddle, and loaded all of her belongings onto her back.

Sheilaktar thrust his cloak, and boots into his hands. "Dress thyself," she told him.

Homen tensed, grimacing quickly at his feet. Did _this_ mean what he supposed? That he was to be turned out? Feverishly he he hoped not, though he had half expected to be. Still, the more the days had worn on, the more concealing such information from her had started to feel both _wrong _and blatantly disrespectful. "Senne-"

Sheilaktar was not in a listening mood: "Be silent and obey me! I am not leaving a stray Red Wizard in my _home_ over Midwinter!" she shouted at him.

He cringed slightly at the volume and the severity of her tone. Perhaps he shouldn't have told her about.. about..._ But- but I- I- ...Please..._ Perhaps this was precisely what he deserved. The young man hugged his things tightly for a moment. Then he swallowed, nodded and leaned over, setting his boots down and stuffing his feet into them. She waited impatiently. He clumsily tied up the laces.

"Swiftly, boy," she hissed. "Swiflty!"

He had scarcely felt so wretched in his life. He had come close once, on the day she'd returned to the cottage and chastised him like a raging dragon for cleaning the place. After all he had been through, it was one woman's temper that left him shaking in his boots. His stomach was clenching to the point of ulcers, and his heart had sunk to his belly.

He had nothing. He was nothing. He had no magic, no spellbook, no name, no titles, no allies, nor country, no red robes, and no ambitions; he was a helpless child, and he needed her. He needed her because she was older, she was wiser, she was stable, and for whatever reason she had elected both to save his life and take care of him.

Homen stood and pulled the coat on. Before he could tie it, she grabbed his shoulder again and pushed him out into the rising daylight. Again he stumbled, hugging his arms close to his chest.


	29. The Girl

Sheilaktar _was_ angry, and she became more so when she turned the Thayvian boy about and he- as usual- did not make eye contact with her. He was holding his hands pathetically close to him and his posture was crumpled. "Look at me," she told him.

His gaze lifted slightly.

With a snarl of irritation, she reached forward and grabbed his jaw and throat, forcing his head up and pulling him forward a step. His eyes darted to hers. "When I tell thee to look at me, I expect thou _to obey_," she told him. "I expect thou to obey each and every last remaining command I give thee, without question, and immediately. Is that clear?"

He was biting the interior of his lower lip, though not very obviously. His trembles, and the despair written in his expression, took her fury down a notch. Still, she was gratified when he nodded.

"Foolish boy," she muttered, releasing him. "Stupid, foolish boy. Of all the half-baked ideas; of all the senses of timing!" She stepped around him, eying him up and down and reaching out to touch him and make sure she knew exactly what she was working with. "A day of warning might have been kind; or dare I say even holding off and saying nothing at all! But of all the choices available; the child springs the burden of decision on _me_!"

"S-senneta do not cast me out," he begged her in a rush, his nails digging into his palms. "I will never-"

"Cast the fool child out?!" she hissed incredulously. "Yes, Nudisne, perhaps we _should_, and rid ourselves of his extraordinarily poor reasoning skills! Bah!"

He looked at her, confused but abruptly hopeful.

"We will speak of 'casting out' when we have returned, _boy_, and not today; but neither am I leaving thee here unsupervised," she told him bitterly. "Thou will be coming with me to the Midwinter festival, and that is non-negotiable."

His eyes widened in astonishment. "But the Wychlaran will-"

"Yes, yes, yes; and were I to take thee there in your current state it would be thy death sentence, now wouldn't it? But there is more than one loophole to every set of rules; social and otherwise! Now stand _still_," she growled at him. "A disguise will have to suffice. Perhaps one with a bit of truth to it will hold up better to scrutiny than a bigger lie. Yes, we cannot change the accent. Fine! It would not be the first time I have drawn criticism for _poor life choices_." Sheilaktar snorted. "Very well." She came to stand before him. "Do not _move_."

Homen was gaping at her. To her begrudging amusement, the only question which leaked from his mouth was: "But you are a necromancer. Can you cast illusions?"

Sheilaktar paused and raised a brow at him. "Who ever said anything about illusions?" she asked gruffly, and then quickly began to pin Draconic words in time with somatic gestures. Transmutation energy rushed between her fingers, twisting into the proper form of spell. When it was ready, she blew upon her hands, and the spell flew out to envelope him temporarily in a yellow glow.

When the spell had faded, she took a step back to examine her handiwork. Homen, who still looked quite wretched in the aftermath of his morning wake-up call, looked very similar once the transmutation was complete. His facial hair was gone, of course, and some of his bodily measurements had changed. He was somewhat shorter, and his jawline was softer. He glanced at himself, and realized he was still Mulan. Then an incredulous and almost violated expression twisted over his face. He grasped at his chest and then looked up at her in disbelief.

Sheilaktar was scowling. She reached forward in disbelief and groped at him. "Thou..." she sputtered. "Thou are the... the... Of _course_. Of course thou have made for the _least feminine_ looking woman I have ever seen. No butt of any kind! No breasts, no curves or fat...! I had expected thee to grow a _few_ pounds here or there in aesthetically pleasing locations- but no, thou art as scrawny as thou began!"

Dismay was written openly on the poor boy's face.

"How the devil do Mulan people tell their women from their men?!" Sheilaktar demanded of him. "The boys have no shoulders and the girls have no hips! Thou art all as flimsy as emaciated, yellow, string bean plants! How do your kind bear children or breastfeed!? No! No, I already know the answer: apparently you require Rashemi wet nurses and their breasts to feed your babies for you!"

Homen continued to stare at her, reeling back from her onslaught and still digesting the fact that she had turned him into a woman.

Sheilaktar glowered at him a moment. Then she sat back on the balls of her feet, and scratched her chin. "Well," she mused darkly, "I suppose at least this means I shall not have to let out the hems of thy clothing to complete the disguise. Though perhaps we might _wish_ to add in a little padding, if just to make it clearer that thou art female? Hmm."

"_Why_?" he croaked in a delightfully high voice. Sheilaktar jumped, startled. Then a wide grin broke her face, and she threw back her head and _laughed_. She laughed and laughed and laughed, because she had been in a state of angry concern from the moment she'd awakened, and _something_ about the Thayvian brat having a songbird's voice was disarming.

When she looked back down at him, he'd shrunk a few inches more. She grinned like a cat. "Why!? Why does the sun rise? Do not question my methods and thou may yet get through this alive!" She advanced on him. "Thou deceived me. _Concealed _not only thy arcane talent, but also thy origins and affiliations!"

"I am not-" he squeaked in that delightfully girlish voice.

"No! Thou art _not_," she told him. "A male Red Wizard on my shores, I would kill will impunity. But thee? A meek little unproven Mulan common girl of humble origins and no breeding or training worth mentioning? Thou I can take _pity on_. At least while it entertains me to do so, and before I come to my senses!"

He straightened a little. "I am posing as Wychlaran?" he wondered, confused.

"No! And thou art to be quiet, and demure at all times! Thou art posing as _unproven_," she told him sternly. "That is our word for women who have not taken our oaths but are possessed of some Gift and live under our authority. Be obedient and submissive to the extreme; follow every order a Wychlaran gives to you, and mine _most of all_. Question _nothing_. Is that _clear_, little _girl_?"

He swallowed hard and nodded, lowering his head.

"Good," she muttered. "Now get on the bat. And hold tight; I am not catching thy troublesome arse if thou falls, small as it might be."


	30. Half Hag

"Now be quiet as I have instructed thee," Sheilaktar whispered as she helped him down off Nudisne's back.

Homen stumbled, feeling a little like jelly after soaring countless miles above the trees, and had to steady steady himself on his Hathran's arm for a bit. Spread out before them on Rasheman's snow was a gathering of incredible proportions. There were thousands of people present, if not more; and countless tents, lodges, bonfires, and other structures. He sucked in a nervous breath and wondered quietly: "What do I do?"

"Improvise," Sheilaktar grumbled. "Act. Thou art good at that."

He winced and looked at his feet. It was peculiar to be looking down at a woman's body, primarily because it scarcely looked any different; his coat was thick enough that no change could be seen about his chest. "Yes, Sheilaktar," he murmured.

The witch grunted and set to fussing about his appearance for a moment. She straightened his hood and lamented his slender frame again, before surrendering to the inevitability that he would stand out. "Keep your hood low, unload Nudisne, and try not to attract too much attention to yourself. I will return shortly." She reached up to scratch the bat's head for a moment, and then turned and strode purposefully towards the thicker crowds.

Homen took a deep breath. Nudisne nudged him reassuringly. He patted her and set to removing the many bags and bundles from her saddle.

Ethnic music wound slowly up across the gathering grounds; a rolling tide of reeds and strings. Shepherds ushered along prized members of their flocks; traders rolled by in an endless scattering of wagons. Past him moved pots and bags containing untold varieties of goods, and carts carrying more chests than one imagined they could carry, with garlic or other hanging goods dangling down their sides.

The most common colors he saw were tan, cream, and brown; but an endless, cluttered rainbow of clothing washed slowly past. Most of the inhabitants were dressed in thick skins, or else tightly woven cottons or heavy animal hair. He heard a surprising number of accents: including some which used pronouns the way he had been taught them, and others which used them in Sheilakter's style of 'thous' and 'thys.'

But if the laymen seemed varied or filled with character, than they were nothing next to the witches. What a widely stylized and eclectic group the latter were!

Their choices in clothing varied like the wind: heavy winter parkas trimmed with fur and bleached white; elaborate dresses with countless pagan knot designs trimmed in gold and proofed magically against the weather; thick fur and leather skins; colored wool emblazoned tastefully with solitary symbols! Their skin ran a gamut of cream to cocoa; their hair was black, brown, red, or (rarely) blond; and their eyes were every conceivable color.

Yet they shared immediately recognizable ethnic traits: their hair was wild and thick and held color well into old age; their bones were sturdy and broad of diameter; and in general they were what any Mulan would have haughtily described as 'plump.' Even those Rashemi women who were incredibly slender had thighs and hips twice the size of a Thayvian counterpart's.

Still, he marveled at their heterogeneity as they moved past. Red Wizards wore, well, red; and few did not subscribe to the same notion of High Thayvian Fashion. By contrast, the witches were a chaotic feast to the eyes. It suited the feeling in the air.

Some traveled together; others alone; some walked with armed and tattooed soldiers of such size and physical strength that they could only possibly be beserkers. They called out to one another and hurried forward to meet or embrace old friends. The atmosphere was one of laughter; of joy; of excitement. The music was gathering louder across the hills, and many people were breaking out ribbons or setting out candles to line pathways across the fields of snow. In the distance, a witch was transmuting ice into an elaborate statue of a swan, while children lobbed snowballs at one another.

Homen took in a deep breath, steadying himself briefly against Nudisne's saddle. Wychlaran were _not_ like Red Wizards. Everything about Mulsantir would be alien to him. He heard curious giggles coming from nearby, and then sounds of confusion. Hair pricked up on the back of his neck, and he realized he'd perhaps shown too much of himself in his eagerness to look at everything.

"Hey!" a voice called, and he stiffened. "You there! Who are you?" The entreaty was only curious, but he had no idea how to respond. He glanced past the edge of his hood, and saw that a group of three younger women were watching him with interested expressions. None of them could have been much older than he; but the first thing he noticed was each doubtless weighed a good fifty to sixty pounds more than him. He _did_ stand out; Of _course_ he did.

"She is not Rashemi!" one observed, while another wondered something aloud about the Orchards, and the others noted the bat belonged to one of the Circle. He heard Sheilaktar's name.

After floundering in vain for a response, he quickly turned back to Nudisne and began unstrapping another bag from her side. Perhaps if he just ignored them?

"Who is she?" he heard, overlapped by a laugh and: "She's shy!" Someone wondered if he was half-elfin; and another suggested he was perhaps too tall. Someone wondered whether he was a girl at all with a chest so flat. He stiffened when he realized one of them had come closer: "Foreign girl, who are you?" the query repeated, now coming from directly behind him. "Should you really be-?"

Nudisne, yipped in displeasure at the newcomer's proximity; and Homen learned the great bat sounded very much akin to a great fox. Nudisne gave a shake of her body and twisted aggressively to bare her teeth at the Rashemi woman, her fur bristling up to make herself seem bigger than she already was. Homen lifted his hands in surprise and then reached out to steady the animal's massive shoulders. He pat her neck vigorously and attempted to hush her.

Nudisne huffed. The Wychlaran (or were they unproven?) murmured apologies or else chuckled. Homen took in a deep breath and whispered an appreciative 'thank you.' The bat grumbled and then rubbed her neck and jaw affectionately against him.

"The creature knows her," one of the girls protested. "Let her be, she is shy!" Another laughed. "She is foreign and we've not seen her before; can we not be curious? We might fast make friends!" The reply: "She is shaking in her boots! Let her teacher introduce her as she wills. Come now, leave her alone. Leave her alone, she doesn't have to answer you..."

_Yes, please go away, _he begged. _Please go away before one of your mentors notices me... _

His prayers were answered. The girls apparently lost interest in him and began drifting along to enjoy their holiday. "I do not think I've ever heard of the Orchards Witch taking in an ethran," he heard one say as they departed.

"The Sheilaktar is _ruthless_. I've heard she's driven away or killed anyone who has asked to learn from her."

"They say she's half hag, you know? Some people say she eats woodsmen who stray into her domain."

"That's nonsense!"

"How do you know? Have you ever seen her up close? She's _terrifying_! If she looks at you, her stare just chills you to the bone!"

Holding tight to Nudisne's neck, Homen couldn't help himself: He broke out laughing. Quietly, though; he didn't want to attract any _more_ attention.


	31. Mulan

Homen was sitting upon their luggage and feeding Nusidsne slices of canned peach when Sheilaktar returned with two women in tow. She gave no warning; merely cast a spell to return the dire bat to her proper size. Homen jumped to his feet and turned about, still holding the jar of peaches.

"This is the girl?" asked a woman in cream and violent. Her cloak was capped by a brilliant white fox pelt whose teeth and tail clasped at her shoulder. Sheilaktar crossed her arms across her bosom and nodded wordlessly.

"By the godesses-!" sputtered a witch with falcon feathers in her raven hair and a dark green scarf about her face. She bypassed Sheilaktar, and he stepped backwards reflexively as she approached. It did no good; she seized hold of his arm with fingers sheathed in a metal gauntlet of falcon-like talons, and she roughly threw back his hood.

With a disgusted snarl, falcon-feathers hauled him forward to throw him towards the other two: "This girl be Mulan!"

An awkward silence erupted; a hundred tongues stilled; the eyes which watched him were suddenly legion. Homen stumbled, and quickly fixed his gaze to his own shoes. With a slight twang of hysteria, he thought how glad he was he hadn't accidentally spilled any of the peaches...

Shielaktar's retort came sharp an immediate over his head: "This girl is my student; do not lay hands on her a second time."

Falcon-feathers was quick to shout: "What be she doing on Rashemi soil!? Be thou mad?"

"As to the first: Brooming my floors. As to the second? Keep talking, I'll get there."

Her response was clearly off-putting, because it took the other woman a moment to respond. "How can thou be flippant here, sister?" falcon-haired stalked about him and seized hold of his hair. He stumbled again with a throttled squeak, and then cut off when he felt her clawed fingers pressing into his throat. "What game doeth thou play where this be acceptable joke?!"

Sheilaktar stepped forward slowly, such that Homen could see the edge of her boots. The furs and raven feathers of her elaborate cloak made no sound while she moved, and her feet were soft upon the ground. He winced against the grasp on his hair, and tried to offer no resistance.

"Release her, Keilaeyn," the Orchards witch intoned in a low voice. "Thou more than any should know it is an unforgivable insult to do harm onto a Sister's chosen companion. Berserker, Ethran, Unproven, or otherwise."

A moment passed in hostile silence. Then falcon-feathers, Keilaeyn, released his hair; and Sheilaktar pulled him out from between them. He glanced up briefly and huddled near to her.

But the fox fur woman was on Sheilaktar's other side, and she too seized hold of him, grabbing his chin and tugging him to look up at her. He obeyed. It took no skill in acting to be quaking in his boots; but the face which peered down at him looked thoughtful.

"You must bring her before the Circle, sister," fox-fur decided. "You must show the others what you have done and account for it."

Sheilaktar chuckled, still not bothering to uncross her arms. "But of course."


	32. Horror

The three Hathran- Homen supposed that's what they all were- escorted him quickly and silently through the center of the gathering. Though they spoke to no one on their way, the rumor of his ethnicity must have flown across the gathering like a wind. The heavily crowded roads parted for them easier than seemed normal, and yet hundreds of faces seemed to press in to witness them from all sides. The younger generations seemed curious; the elder, spiteful. They murmured to one another without bothering to cover their words, and he heard all manner of critique, criticism, insult, and bloodthirst drip from their lips.

A heat rose up in his face, and he raised a hand, flustered, to retrieve his hood. He had never been made to feel self-conscious of his own appearance before: By Mulan standards, he was supposedly handsome. But he was self-conscious now, and aware of every glaring difference between his own body and theirs. He pulled the hood low over his face and tucked his chin into his collar.

It was odd to be on the receiving end of scorn. It was odd to feel flustered by comments on his _bosom_.

That was when _someone_ threw rotten produce at him. He flinched under the hit, and looked in surprise at his shoulder, where a mouldy tomato had splattered all over the coat Sheilaktar had made on his behalf.

_You dare attack a-!? Filthy, FILTHY, unwashed, chattel of-!  
_

"Thayvians should be _Red_!" someone shouted, startling a murmur of vicious laughter through though the crowd.

Homen's face drained of color. He floundered a moment, dazed, and lost somewhere between two worlds. _I am going to die here, and I am going to deserve it... _His fingertips touched uncertainly at the off-color vegetable stains.

Behind him, Sheilaktar stepped up between him and the crowd. His witch didn't look at them, as if unaffected by their assault. With her arms still crossed, she but announced a single word: "_Avodalend."_

A shockwave of screams burst out from where they were standing, and then men and women were flying away in a horrified and magically-induced panic. Stalls were toppled as bodies tripped over one another in their haste to leave the scene. Within seconds, there was no one within a dozen feet of them. Homen stiffened in surprise.

"Sheilaktar!" both other Hathran exclaimed in simultaneous disapproval.

"Someone could have been hurt!" fox-fur chastised.

Homen looked up at his Hathran, who said nothing to her fellows and merely shrugged off their rebuke like it was nothing.

"I-I'm sorry, Senneta," he whispered to her, and not precisely for thrown tomatoes. He clutched at the stains hesitantly, feeling wretched. "I-I... I'll clean it as soon as I can..."

"Use only Rashemi, child," she told him pointedly. "And do not speak unless spoken to."

He bobbed his head and looked back to the ground.


	33. Yhelbruna

Mulsantir herself was a walled trade city upon the lake. She was scarcely the largest city in Rasheman, but in many ways she was formidable as she had stood ground against Thayvian seiges from the south and weathered through stronger than ever. She served as the terminus of Golden Road from Kara'Tur, and as the entry point into Faerun and the Realms, and she was a strategical point of no small significance.

Even in ancient times, however, she had been a locus of spiritual energy; and so it was that this Feast of the Mother had come to take place at her side.

There were located great stone circles made of monolithic blue diorite that would stand a thousand years without the aid of man, and capped off into a circle of triliths by lintels of some darker rock. Each stood many times larger than the greatest of men, and could only have been moved by magic- or perhaps by dragon. Surrounding the grounds were barrows devoted to the most active protective spirits of Southern Rasheman; defenders whom the city called on in times of great need.

It was to these landmarks that the Hathran ushered Homen, and as several witches carried on with conducting decoration efforts, others turned to receive Sheilaktar's arrival with suspicion and curiosity. Most were astonishing in their varied appearances, and wore the beautifully painted masks of the Hathran. Glancing furtively up at them, Homen was struck by how plane Sheilaktar's mask seemed by comparison. These women wore the faces of great dragons, animals, or spirits; and they were liberal in their use of color and stylization. Sheilaktar's was almost entirely white.

Only a few of the women went bare-faced, and these he supposed were to be feared most of all because _they_ feared nothing. Among these was a woman who stood near the southern edge of the circle, her long white hair hanging in thick plaits down to her ankles, and her face wrinkled extensively with age. She carried the grace of a queen and the kindliness of a grandmother in an expression that persisted like a threatening smile about the edges of her mouth. Her dress was a dull and elegant purple.

_Yelbruna, _Homen knew the name without being taught. _The Bitch Queen of Rashemi._

The Hathran as a group waited quietly for a moment as Homen and his escorts entered the circle. Then one of them, a younger woman in a red robin mask standing beside Yelbruna, came forward to greet their approach. "Sheilaktar, you have arrived," she prefaced, and nodded politely in greeting to all three other hathran. Then her eyes turned curiously down to Homen. "And you have brought a foreigner, we hear."

"The waif is mine," his Senneta agreed.

"Come forward then, girl," the robin girl said to Homen, and she gestured that he should follow, "and we shall assess you."

Sheilaktar raised her brows. "Assess her all thy wish; she is still my companion."

At this, the robin-masked woman hesitated. Homen, who was trying and failing not to look up at all the witches about himself, noted that Yelbruna tilted her head to the side. He licked his hips. Then the robin girl nodded, and placed a hand upon Homen's shoulder so gently he almost jumped. He looked up at her in surprise and saw her eyes were smiling behind her mask.

"My name is Nythra," the robin girl told him.

Numb, all he could think to do was nod.

Nythra, surprisingly, chuckled. "Come," she told him in a soft whisper, and she ushered him forward. "And do not be so afraid. They are just a bunch of old and cranky women." His eyes widened in disbelief at her. Nythra winked. He swallowed, but had no choice but comply with her gentle pushing.


	34. Peaches

Yhelbruna, Eldest of Rasheman's witches, was _tall_. She was taller than Homen, and that made her considerably taller than most of her fellow witches. She did not hunch or sag in any way; she stood straight as an arrow. Her hair had a natural curl to it that shown in a few loose bangs which spiraled down amongst her braids. Her cheeks were rosy with life even in Mulsantir's bitter winter chill. And though her cloak and dress might have seemed plain in the abstract, upon her they were a poem of elegance.

Sheilaktar, Keilaeyn, and white fox came up a short distance behind Homen to complete the circle, but Nythra stayed near him and have his shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"My sisters, Sheilaktar claims this girl as her chosen companion, and has brought her here that you might meet her," Nythra explained.

Immediately there was a commotion among the Hathran, who looked to one another and to Sheilaktar incredulously, and who had a great deal to say all at once and in very unhappy voices. Homen was only vaguely aware of them...

At the head of them all, Yhelbruna was utterly silent. And she was _watching_ him, her head tilting from one side to the other upon her long neck, and her braids sliding upon her cheek. His lips parted slightly as he drew in a breath. When she spoke, the softness of her voice rendered her sisters suddenly quiet:

"Tell us child, and be honest for we are wise in the way of truth and falsehood... What is your name?"

Homen swallowed, his gaze briefly turning to the panel of loveless masks and narrowed eyes on all sides of him. Then he looked back up at Yhelbruna and told her: "Nadezdha."

Yhelbruna nodded. "How old are you, Nadezdha?"

"Seven and ten," Homen or, rather, _Nadezdha_ answered her quietly.

"And are you from Thay, child?"

The Mulan boy or, rather, _girl_ nodded meekly.

Another of the witches- they felt so dissimilar from one another and yet they were all just masks- gave an angry and prohibitory wave of her hand. "At seventeen, she is already a full-blooded Thayvian. Do you not know? In her own country, she would already be considered an adult; it is insanity to bring her here as if she were merely unproven and not an outsider!"

"Come now, look at her face and eyes," another argued, "look at her wrists, or at her neck; she is but a child and still gawkish in her youth!"

Still another witch scoffed: "You have lived in Urling and Mulptan too long and you are soft to foreign faces. Down in the south we know better; working with the fishermen we know better; there are even _Red Wizards_ younger than she!"

"Art thou insinuating this quivering feather of a girl is a Red Wizard?" another laughed. "She does not belong in Rasheman, but no Thayvian does; she is hardly _dangerous_!"

"She should be _disposed of_, along with everything she has seen and heard-"

"Don't be zealous; is she behaving like any Thayvian you have ever heard of? Look at her; she is meek as a lamb, and it would be absurd to do harm onto one who is harmless."

"Which is precisely why I deem this naught but a clever act."

Yhelbruna looked to her many sisters thoughtfully, noting all of their words. At last her gaze drifted past Homen's shoulder, and a smile graced her countenance. A few of the other witches were drawn by her gaze. "You've donned your mask, our evening dragon," the Eldest witch noted. Homen looked hesitantly behind him, and saw that Sheilaktar had done just that. The bone white faceplate stood out in stark contrast against her sister's colorful adornments, and this was the first time Homen realized it resembled a death mask or skull.

"The better to hide her indolent contempt, no doubt," one of the other witches noted. "Sheilaktar, we have never known you to _voluntarily tolerate_ students or any other 'nuisances' underfoot. You were quite demeaning with your terminology. Now for years we have asked you to train another, and you do _this_? Are you mad? Is this just to spite us? What is so special about this girl that you should welcome here into your home?"

Sheilaktar inclined her head to the side, and looked for all the world like some sociopathic, otherworldly monster. "My goats like her," the necromancer replied in a level voice.

That seemed to frustrate the other women. "Thine-! Sheilaktar, she is Mulan! Doeth thou not realize that this is not... not remotely _acceptable_!?"

"It is not up to thee to accept it," the necromancer responded with the arrogance of one who entertained no arguments. "She is my companion whether any of thou recognize her as such. And the woman who first lays hands upon her with ill intent, I will render amputated from the offending limb here and now."

'Nadezdha' took in a sharp breath in understanding. Sheilaktar did not wear her mask to protect her identity, he (or rather, _she_) suddenly realized; Sheilaktar donned it only when she expected a _fight_.

"You think..." a hathran in a blue-ox mask began in a low voice, "that you can come here and bully _us_...? That we are beholden to _your_ whims? You have lived too long alone, treating with hags, '_sister_.'" She spat the final word like a curse.

"Thou dare insinuate my allegiances are impure? Do not_ goad_ me," the necromancer uttered, her voice dropping to a low and gravely vibrato. Nadezdha's eyes widened as 'she' realized where all of this might head. "We have done this dance before, and thou knoweth better than to pick fights with _me!_"

"You have brought an enemy into our midst on our most holy day, you selfish, disrespectful _eel_ of a girl-!" the ox advanced a step on Nadezdha.

"Take another step towards her and more than eels will be eating the leg thou takes it with."

Immediately, quite a number of feet stepped forward both to aggress and defend, and their barrage of traded insults and spellwork was pierced only by Nadezdha's dismayed and disapproving cry of: "Senneta!"

Nadezdha hadn't realized how loud she must have been until an entire gaggle of witches was peering curiously back at her. At the rear of the group, Sheilaktar was already holding a long bone javelin at ready, and her other hand was halfway through a spell. She'd paused, however, and was staring at her 'ward.'

A moment passed in bewildered quiet.

Then the necromancer slowly eased out of her crouch. Her javelin slipped down to her side, and after an awkward moment she nodded. The weapon shrunk back into the size and shape of a sewing needle, and she slipped it back into her hair.

A laugh burst out from the front of the circle. Nadezdha twisted back about, and looked surprised up at Yhelbruna. The Eldest was_ laughing!_ She'd turned her face aside and had a hand cupped under her elbow and the other splayed over her brow. She kept laughing for a moment, shaking her head. The other Hathran were just as startled by her laughter. They loosened slowly back out into a proper circle, shooting dirty looks at one another and muttering under their breaths. Yhelbruna turned a thoughtful smile down on Nadezdha.

Then Yhelbruna stepped slowly up to him and leaned forward slightly. There was a viciously intelligent and yet soft-edged look in her eyes up close that left the Mulan girl's mouth dry. _Does she know?_ the Thayvian wondered. _Does she already know everything? Is she about to reveal it?_

"Tell me child," the woman murmured. "What is in that jar you are carrying so tight against you?"

Hom-Nadezdha had almost forgotten about the jar. She looked down at it now, and then swallowed hesitantly up at the Eldest Witch again. "P-peaches," she supplied quietly.

"I see. And did you jar them yourself?" Yhelbruna inquired.

Nadezdha nodded.

"May I try one?"

The Thayvian's eyes widened still larger in disbelief. She hesitated for a moment. Then, at Yhelbruna's prompting expression, the girl looked back down to her jar. She opened it once more, and extracted a slice of preserved peach. After inspecting it for Nudisne-related blemishes, she slowly offered it up to the elder.

The Eldest Witch took it with a soft 'thank you' and stood upright to sample the slice. The other Wychlaran winced as if they wanted to council her to caution; but they said nothing as she took a bite, and licked her lips. There was laughter in her voice when she spoke: "Mm. Tell me child, do you wish to go back to Thay?"

The girl quickly shook her head. "No._ Please_."

"And why is that?"

Nadezdha hesitated. "The... the truth?"

"Yes. Only ever the truth," Yhelbruna agreed.

The girl swallowed. "The only people in my life who have ever been kind to me were Rashemi," she mumbled at last.

The word 'Kind?' was repeated around him as if it baffled them. Yhelbruna's brows raised curiously. "I see. And what do you think of Sheilaktar, Nadezdha? The truth. The full truth."

Nadezdha opened her mouth but hesitated, because what she'd wanted to say didn't seem sincere enough. Another phrasing occurred to her, but fear stole her voice. At her side, the robin-masked girl Nythra gently squeezed her shoulder.

Nadezhda blushed and looked down at her jar. Then she took in a deep breath. "My hathran is... is _terrifying_. But..." She looked hesitantly around at the coven, at these powerful women so unlike herself. "B-but she has been a better mother than my mother, a better sister than my sister, a better teacher than my teachers, and a better friend than my friends." Her next words spilled out in a rush, and she was ashamed and confused to feel hot tears at her eyes once again: "T-The only place I know to go home to is in the Orchards!

"Please don't send me away! _K-kill_ me before you send me away!"


	35. Skillset

Something about Nadezdha's raw voice must have seemed genuine to the Hathran because they set to conversing in much softer tones; but the Mulan 'girl' was too overwhelmed to figure out exactly why. 'Her' vision blurred and for a moment she could only hear her own pulse and the screams of ghouls twisting through nightmarish memories as stress and uncertainty bloomed up to consume her. When she could focus again, it was because Yhelbruna was speaking to settle the group down, and her voice was soothing.

She tried to focus on the Eldest. At her side, Nythra still clasped her shoulder as if in a gesture of reassurance.

"Sheilaktar," one of the Hathran asked. "Tell us your intention with this girl: Is her purpose companionship, or is she a student?"

The necromancer looked away from her 'ward' and towards the question. "She is Unproven," the necromancer responded. "She shows affinity for the arcane."

The Hathran nodded and looked to Nadezdha. "Girl: Have you received any training in magic?"

The Thayvian breathed in shakily, realizing acutely the dangerous she was in if she answered suspiciously. "N-none that would help me any," she told them weakly.

"But you _have_?" the Hathran pressed.

Another Hathran interrupted: "Any Mulan child with arcane taint would have been scooped up by the Acadamy had she been found; they are not given a _choice_, girl."

But the retort was: "Let her answer!"

Nadezdha wet her lips. "I can read Draconic," she volunteered nervously, hopefully. "A-and Rashemi, and most Thorass dialects-"

"Does thou have a spellbook?" came the next question.

"No!" the girl exclaimed. "I-I have n-nothing! These are my only clothes; and Sen- Sheilaktar made them for me." And now they were stained. She touched her shoulder where mouldy tomato still lingered.

"She is still capable of the arcane! Her head is filled with Thayvian culture, she knows nothing of what it means to respect Rasheman, and her ignorance is intolerable," one woman proclaimed.

This greatly incensed the only slender women present: "Oh indeed, eh? And are we to refuse Theskian orphans, and half-orc girls and all manner of those who call Rasheman home? Am I myself not one of the Spirit Folk; is my mother not Faerie; did she not lead my family over the mountains to this land long after I had left childhood?"

"If our own menfolk be presented with exile or quarantine, how do we let this Thay-child roam freely?" falcon-feathers (her name escaped Nadezdha) retorted.

"Ha! Don't make this a fight it's not. Many an unproven has been sworn in at old age, and been taught the way. There is no _time limit_.," an older woman in gray with a fierce demon mask spat irritably.

"Like the necromancer herself," The blue-ox woman retorted bitterly, but this time her barb was not accepted by the community, and more than a few of the witches turned disapproving looks to her which suggested she was not only overstepping social bounds but possibly her rank.

The demon-mask woman cackled. "Our Dusk Dragon's not _old_, and isn't that _your_ problem with her? Her power, youth, and _bad manners_?"

"I believe," Yhelbruna interjected, "that we all already know the truth of this. Let me speak, that we may conclude this meeting and each attend to matters as is necessary."


	36. Decree

Yhelbruna spoke thusly:

"It is meaningless for us to weigh in on the suitability of a Thay-child as any witch's companion; here, that bond has clearly already been forged and set.

"Nor, under our law, has any crime been committed; for the child's status has altered with the forging of this companionship. She is no longer Thayvian, but rather now is the ward of a Wychlaran.

"I see no legal grounds for a trial;

"I do not believe I am about to watch a duel;

"So there is no challenge to be had to her status on that point: she is no longer to be called 'foreigner;'

"However, knowledge of the arcane is sacred in Rasheman, and the child is capable of touching the Weave. Regardless of her knowledge of the Art- or lack thereof- she will always have that potential. So her status must be based upon it.

"But to this, the answer is also simple, as it is written in our laws: The status of 'Unproven' exists for this reason. There are no special provisions to be had for 'strange cultures' or 'foreign teachings' or other rudimentary and gut-driven fears.

"Therefore: Should the child ever wish to be taught magic, or to practice magic, it must be done in the fashion of an Unproven; and then afterwards should she wish to progress further in learning the Art, she must pass the trials to become Wychlaran. Should she prove ambitious and unwilling to submit to our laws, she will be marked as Durthan, and as an enemy of the free peoples of Rasheman, to be hunted down accordingly.

"This is our way; and through these laws, we ensure that even strong personalities such as ours cannot stand in the way of what is right and fair in the land of Rasheman. Do we all know this to be true?"

There was quiet among the Hathran, and then nods, and murmured prayers to the goddess.

With that, Yhelbruna turned her gaze back down to Nadezdha. "Return to your mentor, girl; and know this:

"That you are welcome in Rasheman as one of our own, for so long as you keep to our ways, and to our laws, and to the words of the Wychlaran.

"Your citizenship may not always be easy to prove or explain, and thus I must advise you to not travel without escort, and to exercise wisdom and common sense when it comes to your safety.

"But in all legal manner, you are free here; you are a citizen of Rasheman; and you need never return to whence you came.

"Go and enjoy the day child; And let none bar your path out of bigotry or spite."


	37. Cider

"T-that's it?" she asked, stunned.

"That's _it_," her Senneta agreed. "As if 'it' were something small. Hnh."

Sheilaktar had to tap her arms twice before Nadezdha realized she wanted her to let go of the jar of peaches. The Mulan girl released the jar as if burned by it, and Sheilaktar took it and set it gently to the ground by his feet. The Hathran was still wearing her bone-white mask, and Nadezdha realized her eyes most certainly gleamed green with it on. Green was necromancy's color. Odd; she'd never realized druidism and necromancy shared that in common, before. She watched her mentor, almost mesmerized.

Then Nythra had come back up to where she was sitting, and the robin-masked young woman was pressing a mug into her hands. "Here," Nythra insisted. "Drink. It will help."

"I-I-..." Nadezdha hesitated, looking at the beverage and taking it slowly. "T-thank you." She smelled apples.

"It is okay. You are a little in shock, I'd imagine," the young Hathran told him.

Nadezdha took a sip, and shuddered slightly at the taste of spice, and apples, and alcohol. Then she threw her head back, and swallowed a big gulp. A heat settled immediately into her bones and belly.

"Easy now!" Nythra laughed, steadying her shoulder.

The cider was just what she'd needed. She gave another big shudder, and then looked back to her mentor. They were sitting some distance from the gathering upon a rocky outcropping. Sheilaktar was weaving a cantrip to clean the stained coat. "Y-your mask is still on," she told the woman.

Sheilaktar dusted off her shoulder and then looked to her in surprise. After a moment, the necromancer cocked her head to the side. "Ah? Does it bother thee?"

Nadezdha was puzzled by that reply. "Are you upset?" she wondered.

"Are we _upset_, the child asks...!" Sheilaktar muttered heavily. Then she heaved a big sigh, and reached up to remove her mask.

Nadezdha blinked and then grabbed quickly at her Hathran's hand to still her. Without another word, she leaned down and kissed the witch's forehead. For a moment, Sheilaktar didn't move a muscle. Then her eyes flicked up to her fosterling, and the necromancer drew in a slow breath as if considering her. Another moment passed in silence. Then Sheilaktar stood, slowly removed her mask, and reached out to ruffle affectionately through Nadezdha's hair.

"How do _you_ feel?" the Hathran asked her fosterling.

"_Weird_," Nadezdha admitted in a quiet voice. "And confused. And nauseous."

Nythra laughed. "I have so many questions; It is not every day I get to meet a Thayvian."

Nadezdha winced. Sheilaktar grunted. "Well she's no longer Thayvian. Nythra, can you give us a moment alone?" she asked.

"Of course, Sheilaktar," The younger woman bowed out with a reassuring wink at Nadezdha. Then she turned and headed back down to the gathering.


	38. Papers

Sheilaktar sat down beside Nadezdha with a heavy sigh, and the younger woman scooted over to accommodate her. For a moment, the cocoa-skinned woman just scanned the gathering and seemed to be collecting her thoughts. Nadezdha sat with her elbows on her knees and her cider cupped protectively between both hands. She took another hesitant sip from the drink. Sheilaktar looked towards the sound.

She began to cast, and Nadezdha though he recognized a tingle of divination. Then abruptly a number of shimmering forms sprung up around them, and Sheilaktar's face screwed up in surprize. "_Excuse me_!" she proclaimed at all the wizard eyes and other divination spells that been aimed at her. "Thou all hast three seconds to disperse all this muck before I throw thy tools back with such force thou art left gibbering like simpletons! How _dare_ thee! Thou ought to be ashamed!"

When Sheilaktar has finished terrorizing her fellow Wychlaran, and had proofed both they and their immediate vicinity against magical oversight, she reached over and put an arm about her fosterling, and pulled the Mulan child into herself.

"Are we still being watched?" the girl asked.

"No," Sheilaktar muttered, grumpy. "I can assure thee that now we are _not_. I have even thrown up wards to baffle lip readers. Hmph! Nosy, gossip mongers..."

Nadezdha was grateful to be a little shorter than her Hathran now. She leaned her temple bewildered against the woman's shoulder, and sighed just as heavily as Sheilaktar had; but in a much higher pitch. The necromancer's mouth quirked.

"Thy voice is like a skylark's," the witch whispered almost conspiratorially.

"My _voice_? I have _breasts!_" the child squeaked, still dazed.

"Er, no. No thou doest not," she chortled. Nadezdha scowled at her and saw that the witch's mouth had pressed into a mischievous grin.

"You _turned_ me into a _girl_!" she flailed her only free arm. "And I do _so_ have!"

"Hush, hush!" Sheilaktar cackled, chafing the girl's shoulder and pulling her closer as she twisted to help shut out the outside world. "Not so loud!"

"What _gender _am I!?" the child whispered in alarm; "Am I going to find men attractive?! What pronouns do I use!? Why do I want to_ cry_ suddenly!? _This_ was _not_ covered in transmutation theory!"

Sheilaktar grinned, and hauled the waif bodily into her lap. Nadezdha eeped, and then leaned back against her Hathran in defeated bewilderment, misery, and relief. Sheilaktar immediately wrapped both arms around her, and pressed her cheek against the girl's temple. "Thou doest not wish to cry because of thine _sex_, little fool," she laughed. "But rather because there were reasons to be afraid- and those reasons have abruptly been removed."

Nadezdha mumbled something inarticulate, sinking into the woman's hold. No, the Mulan child wagered, she would not be finding _men_ attractive.

"It will only be a week," Sheilaktar reminded her. "Then we shall return to the Orchards and discuss what to do with thee."

Sheilaktar had perhaps expected to cow the Mulan child, but Nadezdha looked up at her with that heavy-lidded and almost smug expression the necromancer had seen before on a slightly more boyish face. "That would have worked this morning, but now I'm not fooled by you; you drew a javelin for me, and you aren't turning me out," the child claimed brazenly, smiling just enough that Sheilaktar could see her teeth.

The necromancer jumped slightly, and looked down at her in surprise. She grunted. And she tried to grumble; but then Homen's smiles were so rare that they had a somewhat disarming quality to them.

"Yhelbruna said I may stay in Rasheman," the girl murmured, her brows furrowed together. "She said I was no foreigner because you took me in?"

"'Yhelbruna.'" the necromancer looked down at the girl in surprise. "I do not believe thou heard that name from me."

"I studied history and geography," Nadezdha reminded her.

"Ah."

"That... That's really _it_? That's... that's all there is to staying...? Well, if I were actually..."

"What doest thou mean? What else would there be but the word of a Wychlaran?"

"I-In Thay, e-everyone has papers! Identification papers! Describing an individual's status and caste and terms of stay, any land ownership, and the provinces or cities in which they are permitted to live or travel. They-"

"No. There are no such papers here. Rasheman does not track every mote of dust that floats by; we like to keep our sanities."

Nadezdha fell quiet. Then she took in a long, slow, deep, quivering breath; almost a yawn, really; before turning her attention back to her cider. She sipped it. The taste was growing on her. "What now?" she asked.

"A hut has been erected for me, which thou shall share. Then we shall attend the gathering, and proceed through its rituals as we are needed. It would be typical for thee to associate with girls thine own age, but in this circumstance it will not be strange for thee to remain with me most of the festival. Only for the major events will thou be required to join thy own caste."

The girl swallowed. "How will I know what to do?"

Sheilaktar looked down at her. Instead of answering, she turned her gaze back out to the gathering and said: "Thou art a very convincing actor."

Her brows scrunched up in sudden confusion an alarm. "Are you angry? But you _told_ me to-!"

"Yes, I told you to act; And what a stunning tapestry of clever lies thou wove from the damning truth," Sheilaktar muttered bitterly. "I watched how thee stitched that story together in their minds; letting them fill gaps and transitions- I watched how thee- how _we_\- lied to a woman who cannot _be_ lied to. Do you think I felt proud in that moment?"

The Mulan girl grimaced. "You are mad at me for obeying you?" she wondered.

Sheilaktar looked to her. "Well, no. I..." she deflated slightly, and her expression softened. "I suppose it is not very fair to find fault in something which one hast needed simply to survive, mm?"

The ex-Thayvian was quiet a long moment before saying: "I think I needed it a lot more in the past." She looked at her cider. "Could we work on me not needing it much in the future?"

Sheilaktar smiled and ruffled her black hair. "I think that is a good plan. Hmph. I should warn thee, Homen, there is-"

"Excuse me, but my name is _Nadezdha_!" the girl informed her sternly. "And it is to remain such until you have put_ things_ back to their_ natural order!_"

"Ha! Is that so? Very well then, little mockingjay," the Wychlaran teased. "Little _Nadezdha_. I should warn thee; there will be a ritual bathing ceremony, and thou will be with the unproven and ethran companions of other Wychlaran for it. Nude, that is."

The bluster went out of Nadezdha. She was quiet a moment. Then she looked at her cider. "I need two or three more of these."

"Art thou so alarmed by thine appearance?" the witch asked wryly. "Or hast thou merely never seen a naked woman before?"

"Are we counting the night I dressed you after the Lindwurm?" Nadezdha asked meekly. "Because if so, I was somewhat distracted."

Sheilaktar was laughing. "Oh child, child! I was under the impression that thine kinsmen were disturbingly and unethically hedonistic! Will you explain my misinformation? How could you have never peeked at a single-"

"Excuse me, I was studying hard trying not to _die!_ And I shared a room with-" Nadezdha grimaced.

Sheilaktar tried to wipe out whatever she'd remembered by continuing the conversation down another avenue: "Well then, I think I should put you in front of a mirror alone for a few hours to prevent any suspicious gaping incidents," the necromancer drawled.

"Nevermind. I need ten or eleven more of these," Nadezdha mumbled at her cider.

"I think I'm going to need to give you a few tumbler-fulls of _Jhuild," _the Hathran snickered in agreement. "Or perhaps a taste of brandy. Goodness it is just basic anatomy! Mm. Come. Come, let us go to our things, and give Nythra the slip."

"Okay. Sheilaktar? She's sweet and friendly. Genuinely, right? But still, she's _Yhelbruna_'s little bird, isn't she? And I could fumble in front of her too easily," the girl asked as Sheilaktar boosted her to her feet.

"Thou hast a quick mind, a sharp wit, and good eyes, if thou realized so much about her while frightened out of thy skull," the necromancer praised. Nadezdha waited for a 'but.' When none came, she smiled; glad to have skills that weren't immediately ascribed to vices, sins, or, well, Thay.


	39. Custard

They had moved their things (And Nudisne) to the safety of the aforementioned hut, and then headed out to explore. The sights and sounds of the gathering were a whirlwind. Nadezdha stayed nervously close to her Hathran, like a toddler hiding behind mother's skirts upon introduction to the larger world.

Word of the Circle's decision must have traveled as fast as word of her heritage, for the crowd no longer behaved like a hostile lynch mob. Perhaps it was Sheilaktar's ominous and fearsome reputation, but few people even threw bitter looks their way. Certainly, no one threw any vegetables.

Sheilaktar seemed more at home with the laypeople than with her fellow witches. When the latter greeted her as they walked by, her return smiles were often strained or nonexistant. Only rarely did her face light up with genuine friendship.

_She has status,_ Nadezdha decided, curious and a little endeared. _And she doesn't know what to do with it. _

It would have been hard to believe once, but Nadezdha had seen Sheilatar tear a Dragon to pieces with arcane power: such feats as were the stuff of exaggerating bards and fanciful storybooks. Now it did not surprise her to suspicion Sheilaktar was no low-ranking Hathran.

Whenever Nadezdha saw young witches smile shyly at her mentor, or elderly ones make stiff nods, the Mulan reminded herself of that day: of the necromancer, poised before a field of Lindwurm giblets, with blood running down her arms and acid burns trailing from her lips, her eyes glowing emerald green. Sheilaktar was a Hathran. And ruthless.

_And a little shy,_ Nadezdha found herself grinning at her feet, as Sheillaktar turned flustered away from yet another gaggle of witches, and instead went to examine the dried lizard skins, cactus flowers, and medicinal roots for trade at a newly erected stall. Maybe in asking her to take an apprentice, the Hathran had hoped she'd find a friendly little bird like Nythra.

Nadezdha's eyes drifted from stall to stall, looking at the endless varieties of goods. from clothes, to live animals, to antlers, nuts, and fruits, to meats, cheese and wines, to mineral preparations and potted plants and fresh flowers, to skins and fabrics and foods and medicines of every variety; there was so much to look at.

Sheilaktar tapped her shoulder, and she looked up to see the woman offering her a steaming bun. She took it curiously and bit in. It was filled with a sweet and slightly savory cream that reminded her of egg yolks.

"What is it?" she wondered, licking her lips.

"Peh! The child does not know what _custard_ is!" Sheilaktar grumbled in a manner that suggested she was still a little flustered.

"It's good," Nadezdha smiled disarmingly up at her.

Sheilaktar seemed to deflate a little, like a wolf whose hair was no longer standing upright upon its hackles. Then she grunted, and put an arm gently about Nadezdha's shoulders. "Come, we need to find buyers for our goods."

She'd almost forgotten about all the foods, herbs, Lindwurm parts, and other goodies which Sheilaktar had brought to the festival. "Are we going to set up a stall?" she wondered.

"Not if we can help it," Sheilaktar muttered.

Nadezdha blinked, catching sight of the facial expression. Then she realized Sheilaktar would be a _terrible_ smiling shop owner, and she had to stifle a laugh with her hand. _Ha! I wonder if I really could be a bird? Since I'm clearly no longer a boar..._

The thought of possibly having a purpose was reassuring.


	40. Jhulid

The morning and early afternoon had been filled with work for Sheilaktar and her 'fosterling.' They had plenty of bags and bundles to move around, and by the end the only thing either one of them wanted to do was grab some lunch.

Sheilaktar returned to the table with a sigh, setting down a fresh tankard of ale for herself.

"You never struck me as a drinker," Nadezdha sighed as she sipped the tall glass of Jhulid. It was called Rashemar Firewine in other countries, and banned in Thay. It was spicy and left a rejuvenating heat in one's belly.

"Well," Sheilaktar grunted, settling back into her seat, "thou hast never previously seen me around people. People give me headaches."

Nadezdha grinned (with boyish charm, Sheilaktar thought). "Senneta lives alone; she does not _talk_ well," he disagreed. "She likes people."

Sheilaktar eyed her testilly. "Suddenly thou art an expert on people and talking, eh, mockingjay?"

"You grimace every time someone so much as looks at you," the younger girl snickered. "And _you _are not the skinny one with straight hair and a flat chest."

The witch's mouth quirked. "We may need more alcohol than previously thought," she drawled. "How many cups of cider did thee want again?"

"I don't know. I like this," Nadezdha tapped the Jhulid with a smile that showed off teeth. "How many will it take me to forget who I am?"

"At your weight? Admittedly, I'm surprised we're not already there."

"Hey! I am hardier than you seem to think!" the child retorted, pointing her loaded fork at her mentor and lowering her voice. "And I'll have you know I've a palette for wine!" She took another bite of her food.

"In what, thimbles?" the older woman snorted, enjoying this banter thoroughly. She'd never seen Homen so loquacious; the change in identity must have emboldened him like it did stage actors.

Nadezdha affected playful haughtiness. "Buy me some and you'll find out!" she taunted.

Sheilaktar couldn't help it, her lips were pressed in a wide smile. _Definitely boyish. It looks good on him._ "Speaking of buying things," she segued, reaching down to her belt and drawing free a purse. She stirred her fingers about inside, selecting a few coins. Then she turned and placed a generous number of gold disks into Nadezdha's hands. "These are for thee to have a little fun with."

The Mulan blinked, surprised. The coins she was holding in her palm were a pittance next to the hefty allowance the Odesseirons had given to their eldest son.

She pulled the amount protectively to her chest. Each coin was branded with the symbol of the Trinity Goddess. "But what would I buy?" she wondered, confused.

"Aside from this wine you are heckling me for? A proper belt or waist sash, and a coin purse for starters," the witch suggested. "Whatever thou likes, child. Perhaps look for sweets or meat pies or fabrics that suite thy fancy. Thou could use more clothing."

"Won't you be with me?"

"This afternoon, thou should wander a bit on thine own, even if just to test the waters of Rashemi hospitality once I am out of sight. Isolation seems to suit thee less than it does myself, and shopping is a good excuse to start conversations."

"Is that safe?"

The witch nodded. "After that announcement, no one is going to hurt thee here. And I will not be far."

Nadezdha pondered at the coins.

"Maybe thou should buy some jewelry if thou is so conscious about thine appearance," the older witch teased, leaning across the table and reaching out to pinch the girl, "Perhaps a piercing or two, mm? Would you like earings?"

Nadezdha squeaked and squirmed, half scowling and half laughing as she fended off the pinches. "What? N-no, I d-don't need-!"

"A padded corset?"

"I don't- I- Oh, _eat_ your food old woman!" Nadezdha chastised. "Or I'll spend them to buy you pink dresses, face rouge, and frilly underwear!"

Sheilaktar's eyes widened. Then she threw back her head and laughed. It scared the hells out of a bunch of nearby witches who had been watching curiously from afar but whom had not realized the dour hermit could laugh.


	41. Haggling

With Sheilaktar out of sight, many Rashemi now stared openly at Nadezdha. She saw many expressions, not all of which were friendly, but it did not appear she was in any danger. And there were fortunately plenty of people curious enough to deal with her.

They were not, however, going to let her walk away with believable prices without an extraordinary demonstration of haggling skill.

A skill Nadezdha actually had, but was being prevented from demonstrating!

Her first attempts to purchase items made it glaringly apparently that she did not know the purchasing power of the coins she held; and as she only had so many coins, she needed to make them last. She declined to take the finalized prices she was given, and instead crept about listening carefully to other witches barter. Armed with better guesses, she returned to the stalls only to find that no one would offer her a price even as little as five times what they offered one another.

After the third such stall-owner refused to haggle with her, she took in a deep breath, threw up her hands, and loudly announced that if no one was going to give her a decent figure then she might as well be buying from the man's competitor; as the prices were no more outrageous and the quality was by far superior.

After an enumeration of everything that was better about the competitor's wares, the stall-owner was feeling quite irate with the unwelcome Mulan girl. He attempted to insult her, but was overshadowed by her flustered proclamation that apparently no one wanted a Hathran's money and she'd just have to go tell Sheilaktar about all these outrageous prices and that belt purses were clearly scarce that year owed to poor belt harvests and thus retrieving the item she'd asked for would be impossible.

She got in an argument.

The argument turned to loud and strategic shouting.

The shouting turned into a haggle.

And by all the gods, she _did_ finally buy herself a belt purse!

And a belt. And two large rolls off fabric. A shirt and trousers. A hat. Two chemises. And lastly, three scarves.

By the third scarf she had managed to get her shopkeeper down the Rashemi price; and in doing so had attracted a crowd of curious people offering her better and better prices. People wanted to sell her rugs, spices, shawls, and dresses. She bought a meat pie and some nuts.

Feeling mighty proud of herself, Nadezdha tried to find Sheilaktar. The necromancer was watching her warily.

"What was _that_?" she asked uncertainly, as if she'd expected to break up a mob. "All that fuss and shouting over a few silver pieces? Why are they all _smiling _after that?"

Nadezhda grinned mischievously up at her, trying to hold the awkward rolls of fabric. "It was a good haggle," she answered, and took a bite out of her meat pie.

Sheilaktar glanced up at where the merchants were hollering 'yellow girl' to try and get Hom- er, _Nadezdha's_ attention so that more shopping might transpire. Then the Hathran looked back at her fosterling, who was looking much too happy for a Red Wizard boy in Rasheman. Sheilaktar raised a brow, now ascribing to this 'haggling' a magical power which she surely would never understand. "Where did thou learn to do that?"

Nadezdha thought about the places and products over which Homen Odesseiron had learned to haggle. After a moment, she answered her mentor: "A past life."

Sheilaktar thought of the apple tree at which she had found Homen that night he'd come ashore in the orchards. For the first time, she wondered whether the Goddess herself might have taken pity on the dying child as he crossed those frigid waters, and onto him bequeathed just enough luck for hope.


	42. Midnight

It was late when Sheilaktar stepped out of the lodge, easing aside the leather flaps of the doorway with her shoulder and minding her cargo's head. The ambient sounds of hot fire, cutlery, drunken carousing and uproarous laughter trailed out about the timbers.

"Ehm na drnk," Homen warbled in protest against her neck.

Sheilaktar chuckled and said nothing, shifting the lanky child's weight so that she had a better grip on his legs. 'Her' legs? Bah. Sheilaktar couldn't help but see a boy when looking at him. A quiet but surprisingly impish boy.

"Ehm na..." Homen mumbled, and then gave a small yawn.

It was cold out, and her breath came in white puffs as Sheilaktar started down the shoveled streets of Mulsantir, picking her way between the heavy banks of snow and ice which piled up high against the walls of the buildings.

After a long day of travel, play, and setting up shop, most Rashemi were asleep in preparation for the morrow. There would be considerably more night time revelry the next evening.

For the time being, however, things were quiet. Dark. The sky was limitless black velvet with no trees or artificial lights to interrupt it; and it was bursting with the dust of a million stars.

"S'pretty," said the boy, as she neared the city gates, his eyes heavy with a rapidly accelerating fatigue.

She agreed: "Clean and crisp, and yet filled with mysteries."

He thought about this as they passed through the gates and out into the spiral of tents and huts beyond. Then he slurred with bashful sleepiness: "Am eh drunk?"

Her mouth twitched with amusement against his temple. "Am I to conclude that thou was sober when thou began flirting with all the prettiest young ladies at the bar?" she teased.

His eyes widened slightly, even past his exhaustion, and his cheeks no doubt would have looked rosy in proper lighting."U-uhm..."

She continued on in smiling silence as the boy slumped limply into her hold. It had been a long day. For both of them.

"Sh... sheilaktar?" she heard him inquire softly, and she was surprised he had not yet fallen asleep. His voice was strangely hushed. There was an odd tone to it, which in another context might have sounded forlorn or even heartbroken.

"Yes, little mockingjay?" she asked him.

He didn't speak for long enough that again she presumed he'd dozed. But just as they reached their hut, he whispered with surprising clarity: "I love you, Sheilaktar."


	43. Nythra of Seven Rivers

There was a roar from the crowd as two incredibly large men tumbled wrestling into the mud, each nearly nude and flushed against the icy chill, struggling with their muscles bulging as each attempted to gain supremacy over the other. The sport had attracted men and women alike. Some distance away Sheilaktar stepped nearer to say something to one of the rangers on the sidelines, a tall man with shaggy blonde dreadlocks. When gold was exchanged, an amused Nadezdha realized the Hathran was laying a bet on the winner.

To document everything fascinating about the Wychlaran Feast of the Mother would surely have required Nadezha to fill numerous large tomes with pictures, diagrams, and descriptions. There were many times she wished for paper, that she might sketch out a scene of dancers, ritual performances, berserker competitions, exotic goods, fantastic creatures, or curious people. The witches themselves could have easily each deserved a portrait.

She _wished_ for paper, but she dared not ask.

There were few things she could have asked for that were more dangerous or suspicious than _paper_.

So instead she turned back to watching one of the Spirit Folk, a slender woman more fae than Rashemi, weave stories for a horde of children at her feet. The little ones were plopped in the snow and huddling close with rapt attention. Their storyteller was weaving her stories both verbally and with her hands and, every time she flourished, she created magical illustrations in the air around her. She was telling the story of Okku, the Great Bear of the Wild Places; and Homen had never heard a similarly structured fable in all his life.

Nadezdha twisted her fingers together to still the urge to draw, tracing harmless shapes against the skin of her palms and biting her lower lip with thoughtfully curiosity.

"You are wriggling about like there are worms in your pants," came a laughing voice beside the Mulan girl, and Nadezdha nearly jumped out of her skin. She looked to see Yhelbruna's little bird, Nythra of the Seven Rivers, standing just beside her.

"Oh?" Nadezdha fumbled. "I'm sorry; you startled me."

Nythra chuckled. Though she was as curvaceous as any Rashemi, Nythra was significantly shorter than Nadezdha, and was sized similarly to the Rashemi ethnic people who dwelled in Thay. "You and your mentor gave me the slip yesterday!" she accused playfully.

Nadezdha blushed, a little off-balance. "I _was_ a little too frazzled to talk much more," the Mulan girl mumbled. "I'm told I got terribly drunk on Jhulid later."

The Hathran woman laughed. "I can only imagine," she admitted with a wink. Then her masked face turned towards the Spirit Folk woman. "You like the story?"

"I've... I've never heard a similar one," she admitted. The tale was finishing up.

"Well then, you've many more to hear," Nythra suggested. She was quiet for a moment after that. Then she tilted her head to the side. "Would you perhaps grant me a second opportunity to befriend you? I have resolved to ask you no questions whatsoever about Thay. Perhaps I can instead serve as an informed festival guide?"

That threw Nadezdha off. "I... I am sure you must be busy with other things?"

Nythra laughed. "This is a _festival_," she protested. "Of all the times to be 'busy!' No, no; and I am no Orthlor that I should need to view Midwinter as a job!" She placed a hand on Nadezdha's shoulder. "Besides, there's about to be a Faerie dance, and I think you should see it!"

Nadezdha hesitated. A paranoia surged up in her breast. It was immediately quelled by a desperation; a _need_ for the outside world to continue demonstrating how different it was from Thay.

She followed the red robin girl off into the festival.


	44. Play

Nadezdha never became so foolish as to lower her guard entirely around Nythra of Seven Rivers, but by the end of the day there was no doubt in her mind that Yhelbruna's strange red robin really was an incredibly friendly and well-meaning creature. It seemed that she knew everyone, and that everyone was endeared to her. Her demeanor suggested that she was young, and Nadezdha had to keep reminding herself that Nythra was a _Hathran_. And, as a Hathran, Nythra was one of only a few hundred women who ruled all Rasheman.

Even so, Nythra was... well... _fun_. It was difficult to remember her status when they were lighting up magical firecrackers together and watching as each ear-popping bang loosed a shimmering butterfly. The two were quite covered in butterflies at the moment!

"What do you find strangest about the whole celebration?" the witch asked him as they investigated a stall of newly churned yogurt. After one taste, Nadezdha needed to buy a quart.

"Strang_est_?" Nadezdha wondered, laughing. "Hmm."

"Is it all the costumes and dancing?" Nythra guessed. "The animal-headed masks? The Spirit Folk? The face paint? The rituals? The food?"

Nadezdha abruptly frowned, and Nythra gathered that she had accidentally tapped a bad memory. "No," she answered.

Nythra changed the subject. "Ooh! Look, do you steal that stall? That man's wife makes the most splendid shepherd's pies-"

"It's the children," Nadezdha answered the original question. "The thing I find strangest."

Nythra paused and looked at her. Then the robin tilted her head to the side. "What do you mean?" she asked.

Nadezdha put her quart of yogurt safely into her new carrying satchel, and explained: "They're playing. In public. Watched by no one. They look happy..."

"They're watched by everyone," Nythra suggested, watching the Mulan girl with a frown in her eyes. Pity welled up in the Hathran's breast, and she looked away so as not to accidentally display it and perhaps offend the girl. "You are yet a child yourself, you know."

Nadezdha lifted her gaze in surprise. She thought about the statement for a moment, and then smiled. "I suppose I am."

"I think that means you could also play in public," Nythra quipped wryly.

"I suppose I could," Nadezdha reasoned this was true, picking up that a friendly overture was being made. She found herself desperately curious to see more of it. "But whom am I to play with? I may be a child, but it seems you are already an old lady."

Nythra squawked indignantly. "You-! you-! Lies! I am no such thing! Take that back!"

"Take it back? How can I? I've yet to see your face. How can I know you are not a wrinkled old prune?" Nadezdha squeaked and evaded as Nythra threw down her staff and dove at her. Many lingering butterflies were dislodged!

"That's it; Now you've done it! Come back here!" the robin laughed in chase. "Woe is you this day, for I shall tickle the repentance out of you! I am too young! I am!"

It was fair to say Nadezdha had no idea what 'tickling' was, but she was not staying around to find out!

The two young women went bolting haphazardly through the festival, dodging mules, joking berserkers, and shopping witches. Nadezdha turned into a corner, nearly ran clear into Green-falcon-feathers-the-angry (for the life of her, Nadezdha could not remember the bitter old Hathran's real name) and instead skid through a herd of chickens, who became quite flustered. Nythra wasn't as lucky, and went tumbling headlong into the cluster of Hathran.

"Eek! I'm sorry!"

Nadezdha shook herself loose of chickens and disgruntled chicken farmers, and loosed a laugh at the expressions of the Hathrans, who were chastising a blushing Nythra to more care. The sound of the laugh drew their scrutiny onto the Mulan girl, and immediately they were all scowling. Nadezdha put her arms behind her back and affected to look innocent. Falcon-feathers wasn't buying it.

"You!" Nythra shouted, scooping up a handful of snow and bunching it together. "You're going down, mark my words!"

Nadezdha eeped and fled. Nythra pursued through the herd of very flustered chickens. The other Hathran shouted blustery invective after them as Nadezdha vaulted over a passing wagon and Nythra detoured around it.

Nadezdha would have considered herself fit; Homen Odesseiron had been fond of riding, and his parents had gifted him with several horses. But Nythra was hardy and had grown up unpampered and self-sufficient; and she caught up with the Mulan-girl on a snow field just south of the primary shopping tents, and dove onto the other girl's back.

There was much rolling involved, and then Nythra pinned her down with her face in the snow, and tickled her, and threatened to drop snowballs down the back of her tunic if she didn't confess to her sins.

"Okay, you're young!" the Mulan child squealed in horror. "You're young and immature and entirely entitled to pl-stoooppp!"

Nythra cackled evilly, and then flopped into the snow herself. "Told you," she agreed.

Nadezdha wormed about until she'd managed to free herself of what snow Nythra had tormented her with. Then she looked down to see the Hathran was spreading out her arms and legs repeatedly, and had made a depression in the ground. All remaining sparkler butterflies had been lost in the chase, but both of them had gotten quite dirty and amassed a few chicken poop stains. "What are you doing?" she wondered as she rubbed snow and water from her own reddened face.

"Making a snow dove," Nythra told her before sitting up to admire her handiwork. "Ah yes. Perfect!"

"It's not perfect; my butt was in the way."

"Perfect," Nythra disagreed. "Everything I do is perfect, because I'm me. You just helped."

Nadezdha could not argue with such unwavering and innocent confidence. It brought a grin to her face and she looked from Nythra out across the fields. The hour was getting late, and night-time festivities would be starting soon. The berserkers were rolling what appeared to be large drums into the central gathering areas. "How old are you?" she wondered of the elder girl.

"I am the youngest of all the Hathran," Nythra explained. "And the only one younger than Sheilaktar. I am twenty-three. But I am much less than she in other ways."

Nadezdha looked to her in surprise. She thought about this information for a moment. Then she asked: "Does Sheilaktar have some status or reputation even among the Hathran?"

Nythra considered the question. "How much do you know about your witch?" she wondered.

The Mulan girl hesitated. "I know how it feels to trust her," Nadezdha answered after a moment. "I don't know much about her rank."

"We are all sisters," Nythra explained, "but yes, Sheilaktar is something special even among our own. You should ask _her_ these questions about her past. She is your Hathran; I am certain she will answer you."

Nadezdha shifted, thinking about how he had not known Sheilaktar was a Hathran until he had known her for months. She was not the sort of woman to speak about herself. "Do the other Hathran not like her?"

Nythra chuckled behind her red mask. "She has a reputation for surlyness," the robin admitted. "She ignores important events, goes silent for months at a time, and is uncompromising when she believes in something. She is wise in the Wild places of the world; yet she is tactless with her near-equals. Those who like her, find her bluntness refreshing. Those who hate her, find her infuriatingly disrespectful. She has her allies and she has her enemies; and many sisters have strong feelings about her one way or another."

"What do you think?"

The robin looked over at her, and smiled with her eyes. "I think you are the first family she's had in years, little sister." Nadezdha blanched slightly. Nythra chuckled, and reached over to ruffle her hair. "Sheilaktar has always struck me as a person sore deprived of the human voice. Take care of her, Nadezdha. She needs you more than you realize."


	45. The 'Sacrifice'

"Where have you _been_?!" Sheilaktar exclaimed as they found her near the central gathering area. Nadezdha recoiled slightly in surprise, both at the anger in her voice and at the sight of her.

Sheilaktar was in costume, it appeared, as she was wearing an elaborate feathered headdress, and her face was painted with shocking yellows and reds. Her earrings were tumbling cascades of woven, gold leaf wheat, and she was wearing loose-fitting robes of yellow and black with rushes and grasses woven around the limbs in fans and spirals, and beads clacked and clattered about her as she moved. A few young witches were fixing the headdress and pinning various parts of the garment into place.

"I stole her!" Nythra piped up. "I hope you'll forgive me; I wanted to give her a tour!"

That did not seem to make the older witch much happier. She glowered down at both of them, and she was even more menacing than usual all decked up like a spirit.

Nadezdha was briefly reminded of unflattering descriptions of pagan Rashemi rituals as described by Red Wizards. Then she remembered a purchase she'd made earlier in the day, and her face lit up hopefully. She reached down to rummage through her new satchel, drew out the drum of yogurt she'd purchased, and then stepped forward to offer it to her Hathran.

"I bought you this gift."

"I told you not to-" Sheilaktar began grumpily, but she paused upon seeing what she had been given. Her shoulders slumped. After a moment, she gave Nadezdha a suspicious look.

The ex-Thayvian grinned. "So you like it!"

"Bah," the Hathran muttered, reaching over to ruffle her hair. "Stay with Nythra, then. The dance is just about to start. I will join you afterwards."

"You're going to be dancing?" Nadezdha inquired. "You can _dance_?"

Sheiaktar gave the boy-in-the-guise-of-a-girl a tolerant expression, and sighed, smiled, and shook her head. "Of _course_ I can dance," she retorted, and she gave the yogurt back for temporary safe-keeping. "I grew up among Fae. You won't want to blink."

This was quite a boast! "What role are you dressed as?"

"The sacrifice," she said proudly, and then laughed at Nadezdha's dismayed expression. "Ha! Make no mistake, it is not owed to my profession!"

Nythra tapped Nadezdha's shoulder and explained: "The sacrifice may look morbid to you as a foreigner, but it is the most central and coveted role in the dance! It represents our reverence for the bounty of the Mother."

"Indeed, and I may not be spry enough to play it many years longer," Sheilaktar teased as her helpers pulled black leather gauntlets armored with bone to look like claws and with loose grass and rattles in a mane about each wrist.. "I have quite the hoard of excellent young dancers who ought to have stolen it form me already, and no doubt have retained it entirely owed to being Hathran."

A massive, booming rumble rumbled up like a waterfall from the far end of the gathering. The sound swam through the whole of Mulsantir's plains, sinking into every nook and cranny.

"Well!" Sheilaktar exclaimed, as a number of other dancers came swiftly up to join them, "that is my cue. Wish me luck?"

She turned as the girls unveiled what appeared to be the front and top portions of a skull, one which had once belonged to a great sheep or antelope. Its horns were longer than a man's arm, curved, twisted, and incredibly heavy looking.

Sheilaktar took it so lightly that he had to presume its weight had been compensated for by magic. She contemplated it for a moment, as the rumbling called everyone rapidly to the scene. Ahead of her, the crowd was passing rushes and herbs overhead, and the laypeople began making a loose path for her.

"Good luck..." Nadezdha agreed wondrously as Nythra took her by the elbow and tugged her back a respectful distance back from where Sheilaktar's dance would apparently begin.

The necromancer lifted the mask to her face, and the girls latched it to either side of her headdress. The horns made her look unearthly as they spiraled about on either side of her. As soon as it was in place, the helpers immediately stepped back, and dancers quickly took their place all around her with rattles and double-headed torches that burned on either side. Sheilaktar stayed very straight until everyone was in place.

Then she slowly sank into a partially crouched position, spreading her hands out and easing both her wrists into rapid little rotations. The motions caused magically augmented rattling noises to echo up all around her, and a coo of excitement rushed over the crowd. She held her crouched position for a lengthy moment, easing one foot slowly forward with the toe facing outwards. The rattles and rumbling drums were drawing in the last stragglers. Towards the center of the gathering, a massive bonfire was stirring; that appeared to be the place Sheilaktar would eventually end up dancing towards.

The drums went silent. The rattling went silent. The crowd held their breaths.


	46. In Honor of the Mother's Bounty

The drums went silent. The rattling went silent. The crowd held their breaths.

Then Sheilaktar gave an abrupt toss of her head, and the crackling sounds of the headdress sent everyone into a frenzy. The dancers began twirling their rattlers and torches; the crowd began to chant and cheer; and the drums gave a massive boom as the sound of stringed and read instruments began coursing up from all over the gathering.

Sheilaktar started forward, slowly, like a skeletal creature coming out of some kind of hibernation. Each movement was dramatic, poised, and sent exciting rattling noises across the crowd. Each step she made, the laypeople and witches began to throw down rushes and herbs for her to step on.

Nythra tugged on Nadezdha's arm, pulling her through the tightly pressing crowd that they might get a better vantage point. Excitement was building with every moment; and even those who could not see Sheilaktar's dance could easily tell the pace was accelerating by the slowly increasing dramatics of the rattles.

By the time she had encircled the gathering and spiraled her way to the bonfire at its center, Sheilaktar and her 'guard' had acquired an accompaniment of many other spirit dancers, torch-holders, and instrument-players. The dance had greatly increased in tempo, and all of its performers were going through kicks, spins, rolls, and other maneuvers which earned roars of approval from their audience.

At the center Sheilaktar was a spinning tossing, leaping whirlwind.

"I need to join the Circle," Nythra told Hom-Nadezdha as the two of them neared the center. "Stay here, you should have a good vantage point!"

Indeed, most of the Hathran were gathered in the center around the bonfire, where even more dancers were waiting for their turn to join in. As they reached this center, the 'sacrifice' and her accompaniment paused, and all present sound died down, replaced with song.

They were praying to their 'Mother,' Homen realized, his wide gaze fixated on Sheilaktar. _To their triple goddess, their land, their spirits, their ancestors._ He wondered if any Red Wizard had ever witnessed this celebration before him. _I doubt it._

Many of the dancers came forward, carrying samples of the Feast to come. They carried fruits and vegetables, spices and grains, and they laid these things at an altar before the central bonfire. The song rose to a climax. The bonfire roared up into images of spirits and dragons, and Yhelbruna's voice rolled melodious over the chorus.

The moment she had finished the final prayer, the drums started up again, and the strings and pipes began anew. The dancers shed their loose flowing clothing and stepped nude and painted before the firelight, and the crowd yipped and cheered and sang. Leaping in to start the dance anew was their 'sacrifice' spirit.

She, too, had shed her robes. Her limbs were wrapped in feathers and rattles, there were shaggy grass boots upon her feet, and her skin was lit up with reflective yellow, orange, and red paints, Her gauntleted fingers clawed through the air, her mighty headdress clattering as she twisted and wove back and forward in wild, exaggerated gestures, like an excited beast. Her horns swept around her head like scythes as she tossed her head, daring the torch-dancers each time they spun near.

The people threw flowers and herbs to her feet as she twisted and leaped about the center, kicking up snow. As she danced, her limbs occasionally kicked out through the flames, diverting them slightly and making people shout in adoration, and the smoke and traveled up to join the images of countless animals and mystical beasts that the Hathran were spinning above the bonfire in vibrant light.

Homen stared at her. Chills which had nothing to do with the weather were rippling down the back of his skull, through his back and belly and down to the soles of his feet. He swallowed.

The dance continued on like this for many moments, the many costumed spirits taking turns to dance with Sheilaktar until she had completed many circles around the bonfire. When this was done, she took the skull mask from her face and completed eight more circuits dancing with it in hand, weaving around with it like a totem, an offering, or at times a shield. She threw it into the air, spinning, and caught it, and then at long last she conducted it to its final resting place upon the altar.

When this was done, Yhelbruna and the Hathran shouted prayers to the Mother and presented the Feast in her honor, and the whole celebration burst into roaring and dancing.

The festival had truly begun.


	47. Lizard and Bird

Homen pushed his way through the crowd to reach the place where Sheilaktar was resting. Her breath came in thick gouts of fog, and she was wearing a big smile; and aside from her legs, arms, and tribal paint she was still largely nude.

She caught sight of him coming up through the crowds and turned her head as he reached her. "Well! What did you think?" she laughed, her chest heaving with the aftermath of her exertions. There was sweat on her skin, and she must have been scarcely balanced between overheating and freezing.

He stopped a moment, staring up at her; appreciating the sight of her in all her dark and curvaceous glory. Her brows lifted expectantly.

"That was beautiful," he blurted at last; and it was only by the sound of his own voice that he recalled he was female.

Female and, more importantly, a _child_. He felt an abrupt sullenness overcome him, followed immediately by a wave of detached amusement that frightened him with its alien persona:

_If six months ago someone had told me, "You will be standing before a Rashemi Hathran on Midsummer's Eve, eating her up with your eyes like a lovesick puppy," I would have cooked them alive. This is no slender, long-legged, silk-skinned beauty. She has no graceful nor angular features, no swan-like neck; her skin is the color of Surmarsh clay._

And her hair looked bright red in the firelight.

"Beautiful? Is that all?" Sheilaktar asked, playfully dissapointed

Homen considered himself, struggling with the foreign-feeling memories and how they clashed with his appreciation of the dance. "Well," he steadied himself and then smiled again. "You were an exotic, wild, and primordial fae-goddes from some realm long presumed forgotten. Is that better?" he asked a little smugly.

She laughed; one of her big, deep laughs.

A lull came over him suddenly, and it felt as if all the sound died off around him or became muted. For a brief moment, the reptilian fragments he'd buried expressed themselves in harmony with the helpless bird he'd been reborn as.

_I will love this woman until the day I die. _


	48. Self Image

The hot spring water was called up from beneath Mulsantir's barrows to fill enchanted ice pools. The interweaving of natural phenomena and magical assistance was fascinating. The water would be used for a ritual cleansing ceremony for all practitioners of magic, be it from the divine or arcane spheres; and as such the bathing would be primarily for witches and unproven.

Only a very small handful of men called to serve their gods as clerics were permitted to join; and those who did had little to no place in the social hierarchy. It was strictly the role of Wychlaran to mediate all interactions between the mundane and the supernatural in Rasheman, gods included.

So, for a seventeen year old boy trapped in a young girl's body, Nadezdha/Homen was understandably awkward upon being placed with the other unproven as the mass bathing began. Being surrounded by frolicking, naked women was certainly an... experience.

The air was filled with singing, and the smell of herbs and bath salts. The women played with one another with splashing or in swimming; they hummed or chanted through hymns, and they helped one another bathe. A great deal of attention was paid to everyone's hair. Clothing was shed by everyone; only some of the Hathran still wore their masks.

Ho-_Nadezdha_ knew none of the other unproven, but he doubted he would have been any more comfortable bathing near his witch. He had a feeling he'd have spent the entire ritual blushing furiously and trying not to stare at her. As it was, he tried to keep to himself (herself, Nadezdha, _herself_, you are a _she_ right now!) as _she_ lathered and _she_ rinsed _herself. _

Staring down at her own naked, female body was certainly awkward, though. Would she have been considered attractive by Mulan standards? It was hard to see himself. A Mulan beauty was tall, slender, bronze, and flawless; with a sloping neck, an angular faces and long, curvaceous eyes that never opened past half-mast; whose long fingers sported no callouses, but instead well-manicured nails. Leonlai, for instance, had not been particularly well-endowed, but most people had called her a beauty.

Nadezdha sighed and wondered why she was thinking about these questions at all. It was a little odd to be self conscious when one wasn't even in one's own skin. Though perhaps that _was_ why she kept thinking about the topic: It made senses that the urge to remain camouflaged had come with an awareness of all her many differences.

"Her hair is so _thin_," a young woman was remarking. "And so short! Do they really _shave_ their heads in Thay?"

"You think that's odd? She hasn't hair anywhere else. No, not anywhere. It's just- _bare_. Really, it's unnaturally looking."

"Hsst! She can hear you, be nice." By the heat on her own cheeks, Nadezdha became aware she must have turned a funny shade of magenta. Rashemi were definitely not a... a _modest_ people. She sank deeper into the water, and and was grateful for its murkiness.

"Nice about a Thayan?"

"She's not a Thayan anymore."

"She'll _always_ be a Thayan."

"She's unproven, same as us. One day she might be a Wychlaran."

Nadezdha thought that was _incredibly unlikely. _So did half a dozen sputtering Rashemi unproven (albeit for different reasons), who all immediately voiced their disagreement.

Then a voice popped up to add: "I hear she likes women."

Nadezdha turned entirely new shades of scarlet.


	49. Hags and Innocence

Evening found them eating steamed pork buns together on the hillside and watching what essentially amounted to magical fireworks. Understandably, no real rockets were used. Nadezdha had been uncomfortable after the ritual cleansing, but a few hours out in the cold enjoying the festival had given her time to calm down and resume a semblance of normality. Sheilaktar was quiet; her social energy had clearly been spent for the month.

"Do you believe some people are naturally evil?" the ex-Thayvian asked her witch abruptly, as elaborate stylized and glowing representations of animals streaked across the sky.

Sheilaktar looked back at her fostering in surprise. "Thou art asking the _necromancer_ this question?"

"I think you might have the most believable answer," Nadezdha confessed quietly.

The witch considered this prompt as she bit into her bun, chewed, and swallowed. "Would thou like to hear about my first mentor, the Hag?"

Nadezdha nodded.

"She found me in the reeds when I had become sick with infected cuts. She took me home with her and nursed me back to health, and she was a sweet creature. Tender, and protective. She liked to be called 'Nayea,' which means 'Mother's Sister.'

"She did not force me to stay there; I just kept coming back. And she would bandage up my scraped knees, or give me cough syrup if I took a chill. She taught me- taught me patiently, and taught me well- everything she could think of to teach. She was, in many ways, my auntie."

Nadezdha tilted her head to the side. She had never heard a hag described in this way.

"Hags, thou needeth realize, are not _pure_ evil. They can be tempered, civil, curious, friendly, maternal, or even downright altruistic at times. Especially towards clever young people. Hags, I'll have thee know," she gestured as she explained, "have a _terrible_ weakness for being tricked and outwitted by mischievous young people. And there is nothing whatsoever that makes a hag happier than finding out a pretty virgin girl- or boy, for that matter- can hold up their end of a banter.

"But," Sheilaktar explained, "there is a dark seed buried in all hags that makes them capable of great and terrible things: an imagination, an arrogance, a curiosity, an appetite, and a weakness for temptation that makes it such that even the sweetest and best tempered of old hag can never be truly trusted. To befriend a hag is to always, _always_, keep on ones toes. And if a hag gets a craving firmly rooted in her head, there's little on Faerun that can knock it back out again... except, perhaps, a _stronger craving_."

"What actually happened to Nayea?" the ex-Thayvian asked.

Sheilaktar took a deep breath. "What I _believe_ happened is that a temptation hit her which she just couldn't shake; and it overcast her affection for me. When I started having my first monthly bleeds, Nayea started talking about what it was like to be young. At times, she'd break out singing while cooking- that had never happened before. I watched the little things, like how other hags spoke to her about me, or how she gathered up interesting spell components.

"Then, one day, she sharpened up all her carving knives, and started cooking a meal with no main course. She wove enchantments over beakers, as if she were preparing to distill a magical essence, but she wouldn't tell me about it.

"And I made a choice." Sheilaktar looked down at her pork bun. "See, we had a big, big stone oven: Five feet tall and four feet wide. It had a large metal door, and a wood burning fire beneath it. It could get as hot as a forge, and Nayea used it for everything from baking pastries to making magical items.

"I waited until she was checking the temperature, I pushed her into the oven, and I shut the door.

"She made numerous attempts to get out again, and her magic was chaotic. It tore the entire den apart. It did not, however, successfully get her out of the oven; which is why I am rather certain I made the right decision. Who proofs an oven from being escaped from the inside, after all? She died, and I was alone again."

Sheilaktar went quiet. Nadezdha stared at her quietly. Then the fosterling took in a slow breath and placed a hand on her mentor's arm. "Senneta... a few times, you have asked me if your mask or magic bothers me. I... I don't think _you're_ evil," Nadezdha told her.

Sheilaktar looked to the disguised boy, and then gave a small smile. "That actually means a lot to me," she confessed. Then she tilted her head and shifted her weight. "Once thou hast hags for contrast, it's easier to realize no human is naturally evil. Hags are pitiable in that way: they will all inevitably try to take bites out of the people they like best, so they never can they end up truly close to anyone. I am glad not cursed like that. Thou and I may be products of our rearing, but we both have choices: to follow our vices or to turn from them and heal ourselves... and we should appreciate that, even in our moments of failure."

Nadezdha, who was actually feeling quite Homen at the moment, soaked in these words for a bit. "Shei... sheilaktar... why did you save me? Why did you carry me home the night you found me? Would you have done the same for anyone?"

The smile left her face, and for a moment she looked troubled. "No," she said at last.

"Then why...?" Homen wondered.

"I saved thee because thou were small," she told the boy-in-disguise. "Young. Young enough to be innocent. If you had been a year older, I would have left you to the forest." She did not seem proud of the words.

Home grimaced. "But I'm not," he croaked in a small voice. Sheilaktar looked at him. "Innocent. I'm _not_."

"I know," she said after a moment. "But with everything thou doest, thou seems to cry out for another chance to be such. And now that thou has such a chance, thou should take it."

Homen tensed in surprise and swallowed hard.

Sheilaktar smiled mirthlessly and then looked out at the fireworks. "I am not innocent either, thou must know. And I make plenty of mistakes. But I take comfort in knowing I get to go through life without mentally cooking, eating, or disassembling people. When thou feeleth at thy lowest, thou should take comfort in the same: Neither thou nor I was born evil, and should we sink to such depths, we need not remain there."

The ex-Thayvian shuddered. He squeezed her arm a little more tightly, and took comfort in her strength.

A long silence passed between the two.

Then an ironic smile quirked unexpectedly at the corner of his mouth. She caught sight of the expression and blinked at him. Homen raised a brow. "You, eh, _don't_ disassemble people in your head?" he asked innocently.

Sheilaktar was confused. "What? No, I- Well, I suppose I do imagine them with transparent skin," she admitted bashfully. "I don't imagine actually _doing_ anything to harm anyone, though! Why would thou say such a thing?"

He eyed her slyly. "The first aspects you seem to notice about anyone are neither their eyes nor face nor voice. You notice their_ physical proportions_." Sheilaktar grimaced in surprise. "In fact, I think you could instantly become several orders of magnitude more frightening if we eliminated your respect for personal space and sent you about the world with a string of measuring tape. I think the people you talked to wouldn't be able to sleep at nights for_ weeks_ afterward."

Sheilaktar blushed purple, and Homen just about died laughing. "Well," the witch grumbled, "sad news for thee, but I'm sure I will _not_ cannibalize thee in an attempt to steal thy youth. No, I'm afraid the most exciting thing thou hast to face in living with me is my bad temper. "

That forced an even louder laugh from Homen's throat. "_That_, Senneta, is _plenty_ excitement enough for me."


	50. Sensitivity

Nythra of Seven Rivers found Nadezdha and dragged her off through the crowd by the elbow. The ex-Thayvian squeaked and then laughed.

Sheilaktar glanced after them and then sighed and rolled her eyes. When Sheilaktar had joined the Wychlaran, Nythra of Seven Rivers was one of the only people who was openly welcoming to her. Sheilaktar had told 'Nadezdha' as much when the fosterling asked about Nythra's interest in her.

"She does not intend thee harm," the necromancer had explained. "New people fascinate her, and I think she likes social outcasts more than she likes anyone normal. But she'll always be dangerous because of her affiliations. Just be careful."

The ex-Thayvian had seemed a little melancholy about that explanation. She'd said: "In Thay, we were very good at smiling-while-never-actually-trusting people," to which Sheilaktar hadn't been sure what to say to comfort her.

"Where are we going?" Nadezdha called as she got her bearings.

"You'll see!" Nythra squealed. "You'll see, you'll see!" and by the tone of her voice, Nadezdha reasoned it was going to be exciting.

They crested a hill and Nadezdha skid to a halt, her jaw dropping. There, standing between the stones at the central ritual area, was a gigantic white bear covered in multi-colored whirls of glowing light.

"Is that-?" she wondered.

"Okku!" Nythra crowed. "He's Okku! Remember the story I found you listening to? Yes! He's the very same! The Great Bear!"

"It's- _he's_ enormous!" Nadezdha squawked.

"Yes! Come on! Come on, let's go see him, and you can get his blessing!"

"_What_!?"

But then Nythra had hauled her off again.

* * *

_This is a terrible idea!_

And that was how Nadezdha was standing at the edge of the stone circles with Nythra's hands fastened tightly around her arm. They were looking up at an enormous, flaming bear who was speaking with the Hathran.

"I don't want to meet him," she breathed in a squeak.

"He won't hurt you," Nythra laughed. "He's fierce in battle but as lovable as a kitten! You'll see!"

"I'm Mulani," Nadezdha could barely breathe.

"Don't worry," Nythra chuckled. "He'll see into your spirit and know you for the gentle creature you are."

Nadezdha drooped. _I am going to die. I am going to be eaten by some pagan, spiritually-enlightened, animal god._

Okku had turned towards them, and all Nadezdha could do was gape. The creature _towered_ over them, and light radiated off him in radiant tendrils. He seemed to stand half in their world and half in some other; His eyes pools into an abyss. Nythra was speaking to him, but the Bear's rolling voice crested over them in a low roar and Nadezdha was deaf to everything else: "You have brought before me a child of _Thay__!_"

Nadezdha shook violently as images and half memories of ghosts and dragons and _dark _things swimmings the length of Mulsantir built up in her mind's eye. Nythra said something. The bear snarled, stepping forward and bellowing: "Bathed and swaddled in the disrespect and ignorance of a century; how dare such things presume to walk the soils where gods once roamed!?"

Nadezdha crumbled to her knees on the ground, and covering her head. {I am sorry!} she babbled in near hysteria, her eyes fixed on the ground as a leviathan swam behind her eyes, and the fierce anger of the Bear God rolled around her. {I am sorry! I am sorry for my people and I am sorry for my blood! Please- please s-stop-!} Her vision was swimming.

A long silence stretched above her. Long enough that Nadezdha once more became aware of _time_, and that some unknown duration of it had passed. The _anger_ she had felt flooding all around her seemed to have receded. She heard a great intake of breath, and so powerfully did Okku _sniff_ her that he seemed to create a small wind.

A thoughtful rumble poured over her senses."The touch of the Unseen clasps thin about your shoulders as a hopeful and unacknowledged mantle, and clings to the sensitivity of your fingertips," the great entity growled. "Your nescience offends us all; but you will learn. And you will live or die by your own hands."

Trembling violently, Nadezdha did not look up. The bear was quiet a moment, and then he breathed a soft rush of fiery air over the crown of her head. A tingling sensation came with it, and int he corner of her mind she registered that the Bear God had, in fact, given her his blessing.

"Go."

Nadezdha scrambled back from him obediently. She staggered to her feet a few steps away, and saw that the bear had already turned from her. Without another word, she fled off into the festival.

She did not know where she was going. She just needed to get _away_, even though she wasn't certain _why_. She scrambled past shop stalls random street patrons, and then skid behind a tent where a wall blocked her passage. There was no one around. She cried out helplessly and leaned into the cold stone, shaken.

Then hand Hands grabbed hold of her shoulders and she gave a startled exclamation out as she was spun about to face someone. Nythra. She was face-to-face with a Robin mask, which meant _Nythra_.

"Nadezdha, I'm sorry!" the Hathran exclaimed. "I'm didn't- I didn't think that-" she hesitated, not sure how to phrase her apology. "I've never seen him react that way towards any..."

"I pissed myself," the ex-Thayvian blurted.

They both looked down and saw it was true; Nadezdha had completely soiled her good clothes.

"Oh dear... c... Come, you can tie my cloak about your waist. Let's... let's get you back to the hut and you can change..."


	51. Knitting

Nadezdha wasn't sure what to feel as she emerged from the hut and offered Nythra the borrowed cloak. She had composed herself, at least, and changed clothing. She felt a little foolish, and a mite resentful. Some reptilian fragments were being disturbingly active of late:

_Embarrassing__. The Lindwurm was understandable; you were being chased by a dragon. But to lose control of your bladder in front of an *animal*? A Rashemi Spirit? Disgraceful. Weak. _

"Nadezdha, I didn't realized you'd be so frightened," the young Hathran murmured gently. "I have introduced him to many young unproven, and many foreigners. He is often grouchy at first, but-"

"I didn't want to meet him!" Nadezdha sputtered angrily. Then she considered the scene, and what it must have looked like to anyone watching. Grimacing, she lifted a hand to rub the bridge of her nose. Had the spirit's anger been a real and palpable effect? Or simply a product of a hyperactive imagination? If Nythra hadn't felt it, then it was difficult to say. "I... I shouldn't shout. I'm sorry."

Nythra shifted and then rested an apologetic hand on the Mulani's shoulder. "Why don't we go find Sheilaktar," she suggested. "We could get dinner, and then perhaps... knit?"

Nadezdha had no idea how to knit, but it sounded much safer than ruminating on anything The Reptile saw fit to comment on. She wondered if all witches were skilled in hand to hand, and if she might convince Nythra to spar with her that she might work off the jitters in her fingers. Alternatively, perhaps Sheilaktar herself would.

The duo wound their way through the festival, asking after Sheilaktar's whereabouts until eventually they were directed to one of the lodges.

Sheilaktar was conversing with one of the berserkers, a tall creature with shoulders much broader than hers and a mane of untidy and shaggy blonde hair. The two were standing very close, grinning and sharing inaudible banter.

"There she is," Nythra noted. Nadezdha grabbed her arm to restrain her. Nythra glanced to her.

A few moments passed. The berserker grinned and gestured off with his chin. The Hathran smirked provocatively and followed. The two disappeared together into the back rooms.

Nadezdha stared blankly off after them for a moment. Then her shoulders slumped and her face stretched into a painful wince. The day seemed set to disagree with her at every turn.

"Ah," Nythra realized what they had narrowly avoided interrupting. Sheilaktar needed all the love she could tolerate!

"I don't suppose there's any chance they're simply going to sip coffee and ruminate on the migratory patterns of common songbirds?" Nadezdha muttered.

Nythra looked at her in surprise. "No, I would definitely say he's her favorite."

Disappointment was etched into the Mulani girl's face, substantiating rumors about her sexuality. "Right. Well, then. I believe you said something about knitting."


	52. Introspection

Homen was feeling a little sullen and distracted through the final ceremonies which officially opened the Wychlaran new year. He did not listen much to the chants or pay attention to the rituals, but he did watch Sheilaktar. She seemed to have an important role in the proceedings, even among her fellow Hathran. It cemented his suspicion that she had impressive status.

Nythra seemed to find his mood funny, and he was glad he couldn't see her face because he suspected she'd be grinning at him-

_I shall remind you that you are currently *female.* _

He huffed, leaning his face against his hand and closing his eyes as a headache came on.

_Does it matter? I was jealous of Leonlai's attention, and that certainly wasn't sexual. Apparently I just like monopolizing the attention of powerful and dynamic people. _

_Well that's an insightful observation. When did we become introspective? _

_Regardless, it is inaccurate for describing your current circumstances. You are_ absolutely _attracted to Sheilaktar, and you would have to be stupid to think otherwise._

Homen opened his eyes and glanced over as Nythra offered him a bun. His uncomfortably forked and objective thoughts receded somewhat, and he sat up straight to thank her and take the offered food.

"You've been moping all evening," the robin-masked woman chuckled. "Have you brought this up with _her_?"

Nadezdha/Homen considered the question. "Wouldn't it be inappropriate?" she/he asked after a moment.

"Yes, a little," Nythra admitted with a gentle smile in her voice. "Puppy love: It's a thing. But why_ wouldn't_ you care a great deal about Sheilaktar, mm? She is clearly a central figure in your life."

Nadezdha eyed her, wondering if Nythra might be talking from experience. What must it have been like, being the hands and eyes of the most powerful witch in Rasheman? Most likely, a little overwhelming. "Do you-...?" the Mulani wondered, before cutting off the question and blushing.

Nythra laughed. "Do I like women? No. But... I have felt the magnetism of one. Jealousy is not just an emotion for lovers. Dogs get jealous for their owners; children get jealous for their mothers. Certainly, fosterlings must get jealous fortheir mentors. It's normal to enjoy the attention of people you care about. I guess that makes insecurity one of those hurdles nearly everyone has to jump through sooner or later."

Nadezdha considered this.

"And in that case, perhaps you should just focus on how random highlander berserker men only get to see Sheilaktar once or twice annually, and you get to have her nearly every day of the year."

Nadezdha eyed the robin-girl suspiciously; she was sure Nythra must have been smiling like a fiend. Still, her words had wisdom to them. The Mulani would have to... reign back on her/his disappointment, wrap it up, and set it aside. It would help tremendously if she focused on how grateful she was to have a home and someone to stay with, and not focus on Sheilaktar's extracurricular activities.

Perhaps she might try to pay attention to the tail end of the ceremonies after all.


	53. Winding Down

An hour prior to dawn found Nadezdha conscious but calm. Her head felt clear of lizards that morning, so she sat alongside Sheilaktar's palette and rubbed Nudisne's ears.

Breakfast was dumplings. Sheilaktar and her fosterling gathered their things, tying purchases into neat bundles for ease of transportation.

By mid morning the festival was clearly packing up. Merchandise was folded back into its crates and boxes; the ground was littered with chests and bags and partially deconstructed shop facades.

The necromancer seemed eager to be gone, and Nadezdha echoed her sentiment. Nudisne was re-gigantified, and the Mulan girl helped Sheilaktar saddle her.

The falcon-feathered Hathran (Kaelayen? Kelayaen? Nadezdha could simply not remember the unpleasant woman's name) came up to speak with Sheilaktar. Nadezdha kept packing. She caught mention of 'Yhelbruna', and heard Sheilaktar's tolerant sight. The necromancer returned to her side.

"I am being summoned for a brief conversation," she muttered irritably, drawing out her belt purse as she spoke. "Here. We seem to have plenty of room, so purchase some fabrics or foods or whatever suits your fancy. Prices should be cheap today. Only try not to get thyself in trouble."

Nadezdha nodded and took the offered coins. She glanced at falcon-feathers. "Is this about me?" she asked.

Sheilaktar chuckled and patted hers houlder. "My Sisters seldom need an excuse to lecture me; but you are an especially good one. Don't worry about it. Have fun haggling."


	54. Natural Order

It was late when they landed in the Orchards, alongside the familiar cottage. They had only been gone seven days, but it felt like they'd been absent for _months_.

Homen- he was free to be 'Homen' again!- was exhausted, but he dutifully helped Sheilaktar unpack and tend to Nudisne.

"How the devil did thou manage to select, haggle over, purchase, and transport thirty-seven different kinds of fabric, fourteen balls of yarn, and twenty-eight spools of thread back to our hut before I managed to finish a one hour meeting?" Sheilaktar asked, not for the first time.

Homen smiled sleepily. "Don't forget two barrels of yogurt, ten pounds of sugar, a small keg of Jhulid, and a live cactus," he reminded her.

Sheilaktar eyed him suspiciously, as if wondering if he had a wheelbarrow hidden under his coat.

"There were so many good bargains!" the boy protested bashfully. "Some of the fabric was from leftover tailoring scraps!" He shifted. "It was more of an hour _and a half_ meeting, by the way."

His witch scrutinized him a moment longer, a wry grin pulling at her mouth. Then she started to laugh. "Mn. Tell me, did Nythra give you any gifts before we left, or did you give anything to her?"

He blinked and shook his head. "No.

Sheilaktar grunted and came up to him. She began to weave spells about him, and he realized that she was looking for evidence of divinations. This explained why she'd asked about Nythra; it was usually hard to do any form of long-range divination without an object to focus on.

When she was satisfied that their privacy had not been invaded, she stood back and began to weave her more powerful transmutation. Again, Homen was left to wonder how Sheilaktar prepared her spells. She was clearly no Wild Mage; but she clearly had no spellbook. A whirl of golden magic swam up around him.

Homen staggered forward. He touched his face and felt stubble. He touched his chest and then his thighs. Then he gave a dramatic sigh of relief, because everything was back to its natural order.

"Thank the _gods_," he sighed, slowly easing back up to a standing position. His face was still calmer than it had been before their departure; and his posture was less meek.

"Or, in this case, the goddess," Sheilaktar muttered. "Come, we should get some rest. We will figure out what to do with thee in the morning.

Homen nodded and stepped gratefully after her. Then he paused and blinked slowly. "Actually, there is something I want to do, first..."

She looked at him. "What now?"

"Yes. Yes, I am going to go and pee. Standing up," he informed her as he walked for the appropriate tree. "Without squatting, wondering how the hell real women manage to keep their shoes out of the line of fire..."

Sheilaktar watched him go with a raised brow. Then she shook her head and covered her face with a hand.


	55. Magic is a She

When Sheilaktar woke, she shuffled tiredly up to the front door of the cottage and leaned herself in the threshold. She looked out to where Homen was forking old hay from within the goat shelter. She shook her head wonderously.

After a short while, he turned and came back to the cottage to fetch new food. He made eye contact with her as he approached. She nodded her good morning to him. He nodded back, retrieved the hale bale, and took the bag of alfalfa and grain with him on the same trip.

Sheilaktar tilted her head to the side, watching him as he went back to the shed, cut open the bale, and calmly reached for the pitch fork. After a moment, she followed him. He glanced briefly at her but continued forking fresh hay into the goat manger.

"Thou art an Odesseiron?" she asked him at last.

"I am," he agreed simply.

Sheilaktar grunted. "Thou doest not seem to _behave_ much like one," she observed.

He finished forking the hay aside, and then leaned the took up against the shed. Then he looked back at her for a beat. "Have you met many?" was his reply.

The witch crossed her arms over her chest and regarded him her brows raised. Homen watched her a moment longer, and then he stooped to pick up the alfalfa up. "No," she acknowledged past the clamor of excited goats. "I suppose I have _not_."

"Mm," was his only response as he distributed the requisite alfalfa and then knelt to pack up the unused food to carry away.

Sheilaktar pressed him. "I have, however, had the misfortune of meeting Thayvian nobles on past occasions. And I would have described them all as rude, unrealistically confident, pathetically paranoid, emotionally constipated, and, well, psychotic."

He looked up at her. The witch was watching him expectantly. "Senneta, do not take this wrong way... but you used to go whole days talking to no one but your goats..."

She scowled and planted her hands on her hips. "_Homen,_ answer me."

He shouldered the remaining food. "You haven't asked me a question." He set off to put it away. "What do you want to know?"

Sheilaktar pursed her lips thoughtfully, following him. He had changed over the last week. She couldn't decide how she felt about it.

"Do you want to know how I was raised? What my parents names were? What the academy is like? My favorite flavor of cooked noodle?" He finished, and went to fetch the shovel, and then headed back towards the shed. "Do you want to hear about how I treated Rashemi slaves?"

She frowned, uncertain what to ask him. "Perhaps that last one," she called out uncertainly.

"Badly," he answered as he set to shoveling a week's worth of goat leavings. "I treated them badly."

Sheilaktar grimaced and, for once, she didn't know how to proceed. Then she closed her eyes and shook her head. "I shouldn't have forced this topic on thee," she realized

"Well," he grunted as he relocated a shovel-full of poo. "It's an understandable one," he admitted. "It's what anyone else would ask."

"Then I won't," she asserted. "Though I do have a slightly related question: What was going through thy mind when thou woke up that first morning in my keeping?"

Homen relocated the final shovel-full. Then he leaned on the shovel for a moment, trying to recall. "I... I only wanted to know what would happen next," he decided. "I knew I had little say in the matter, and it was a relief not to have to make any decisions. I felt detached. Although I remember I didn't want to die... And I knew you deserved my respect."

Sheilaktar studied him as he gathered up the shovel and pitchfork and put both of the tools away. She shook her head in disbelief.

"_Thou _art a Red Wizard of Thay?" she finally asked, hardly able to believe such a thing.

Homen paused, one peasant tool clutched in each hand. He was silent for a long moment, his shoulders slowly sinking. The air between them was still for a moment, but for the sounds of goats. "I was," he said at long last. "As of last week, it would seem I'm no longer even 'of Thay.'" He considered that for a moment and then finished up with the tools and dusted off his hands and went to get the milking pail.

"Doest thou miss that?" she asked him.

"Being a Red Wizard?" He grimaced as he approached Nana and patted her neck. "I don't know." He took in a long slow breath through the nose, and then tilted his head to the side. "I worked my _whole life_ to earn those robes. Every day. I even spent festivals cooped up with my sister, fighting to make sense of the shapes. Red silk: it fueled me through every failure, and drove me to every success. But now that it's gone, do I miss it?" He shook his head. "No," he realized. "I don't think I do."

Sheilaktar fell quiet. She digested this, and made mental note that this was not the first time Homen had mentioned having an older sister. She watched him go through his chores. When another question finally came to her, her voice was soft: "Homen, doest thou miss... _magic_?"

He paused in the milking. He was still for a moment. Then he steadied himself with another deep breath. "Yes," he whispered in a low and tremulous voice. "Yes, that's the one thing I know I'll always miss."

"She," Sheilaktar corrected thoughtfully. "Magic is a _she_."


	56. Borodinsky Bread

The days passed in relative silence after the festival, dominated by the demands of many chores. The food was good; their freshly purchased goods added an extra splash of flavor to every meal. The yogurt was put to good effect in everything from stews to tea creamer, to the occasional dessert. Beef, fish, and pork stock made a welcome break from rabbit and pheasant. Lunch changed from canned fruit and duck jerky, to canned tuna and spicy cheese baked into a rye sourdough bread.

Homen found he liked the smell of the baking bread, into which Sheilaktar seemed to have put beet molasses and ground caraway fruits. The next time he saw her bringing out the dark flour, he asked to be shown how to bake.

It was the first time they'd said more than two words to one another since their conversation about his origins on the morning after their return. Sheilaktar walked him through the steps and then grasped his hands to show him how to knead the mixture appropriately.

Homen admitted to himself that he appreciated her touch in that moment. After talking to Nythra it seemed less inappropriate that he should enjoy Sheilaktar's physical proximity; even if he was now largely sure it would be incorrect to pine over her. As she hovered over his shoulder and instructed him, with her fingers upon his own, he found himself wondering whether he might find excuses to make more casual contact with her in the day-to-day.

While the bread was baking, he tried to think of good excuses to occasionally enter the Hathran's personal space. After a bit, his mind drifted back to the bathing ritual over Midwinter, and he remembered that the women had paid great attention to one another's hair.

After he and Sheilaktar had gone to bed for the evening, he spent a few hours trying to determine how to make a simple braid.


	57. Painful

Sheilaktar was quiet as she worked to engrave a token of ram's horn she'd purchased at Midwinter. She glanced now and then to where Homen sat patiently milling flour with their quern. He was healthier than when they had met, she saw, in more ways than one. His appetite had increased tremendously for starters, and he was tiring less swiftly under the strains of physical labor.

Now, as then, his face was quiet and his mind seemed to be resting. But his color was less pale, she saw, and the olive of his skin seemed bolder and more vivacious. Quiet he might have been, but his mind must have been calmer.

She glanced up at him and then paused. He'd paused to make sure he'd not overlooked any grains buried in the fresh flour. As he did so, he tilted his head to the side and seemed to be lost in a momentary daydream. His forefinger drifted through the powder.

Sheilaktar hesitated. Then she straightened her back and craned to see.

He was sketching runic sigils. She caught sight of a mark of fire, and then a hesitant and half-forgotten protection construct.

Sheilaktar's face fell. An unexpected, feathery pain bloomed up in her stomach and diaphragm. She looked slowly up to the boy, whose face was relaxed and quiet. He didn't seemed notice her, but he all the same he paused and blinked rapidly as if startled awake.

Homen smoothed out all symbols from the grains and he shook his head. He lifted up his work board and scraped the flour neatly into a jar. Then he drew out a fresh handful of grains, and continued his milling.

Sheilaktar leaned back in her chair, watching him uncertainly with her brows drawn together and a heaviness in her breast.

What must it have been like? To know the touch of The Unseen One, to have had complete freedom to pursue and understand her in all of her power and beauty, and then to be sentenced to remain distant from her forever after?

Painful, she imagined. Like a wing-clipped bird, a dryad denied a glimpse of her tree, or a selkie held permanent from the ocean surf. It must have been soul-shatteringly painful. Perhaps the rest of the boy's traumas had simply diffused the loss.


	58. Vremyonni

A blizzard had settled in over the orchards, trapping them inside for the day. She headed out only once, to bring the goats warming cantrips and to place grain on the ground between them so that they need not leave their huddle to eat. She was gone but a scant five minutes, but her cloak had gone from black to white with snow by the time she returned.

There were no more foods to jar, preserve, or can; and those vital chores which had demanded their attention had all been seen to in the week following Midwinter. Left with precious few tasks with which to concern themselves, the duo found themselves curled up with warp quilts before the garden window, watching the flurries and sipping on hot tea. It was clearly a day for lengthy indoor projects or perhaps artistic craftsmanship.

"Homen," Sheilaktar began, "hast thou ever heard of the Vremyonni?"

"I don't think so," he answered, blowing softly over heated vapors.

"I am not surprised; they are little known outside the world of Wychlaran, and we are a secretive peoples. They are the counterpart to the witches," the Hathran explained. "Vremyonni are Rashemi _men_ born with arcane talent."

This was an interesting topic. Homen perked up and looked to her curiously.

Sheilaktar smiled slightly. "What do Thayvians say happens to our menfolk if they should be born with the wizarding gift?" she wondered curiously.

Homen thought back. "It's a matter of speculation. The most common theory I've heard is that you offer the boys as blood sacrifices on the eves of their birth. Others say witches know black rituals which can strip a man of his gift and take it for themselves."

"Ah, such colorful musings!" the Hathran chuckled in wry amusement. "I suppose it has been left largely to their imaginations."

"What is the truth?" he asked.

"In Rasheman, more women are born with arcane talent than men. But that is not to say the men are few in number.

"Up in the peaks of Rasheman's most foreboding mountains, one can find the monastic villages of the Vremyonni. Our men are sequestered there, and must live apart from the world of the common folk. While they are forbidden from practicing magic in the same manner as a witch, they are masterful craftsmen of arcane artifacts and tireless archivers of knowledge. All of Rasheman's great libraries are kept in secret by the Vremyonni. And although only a priestess may lead a religious body, the Vremyonni are the ones who build and maintain our greatest temples, and fill its walls with protective enchantments and works of art."

His eyes widened in curious understanding, and he sat up a little straighter that he might listen better. _They are the supportive gender_, he realized. _Like nuns in Mulhorand. _

"Vremyonni are responsible for 'maintaining the household' so to speak. It their sacred responsibility to care for children: The sons and daughters of many Wychlaran, and children born with arcane talent, and orphans for whom no other parents can be found. In fact, almost all Wychlaran speant their childhoods no stormy mountain peaks, listening to the songs of morning bells and ancient hymns, in the tender care of wise old men. Witches who _haven't_ grown up with that background are considered disadvantaged."

"Must _all_ mage-blooded boys become Vremyonni?" he wondered.

"As witch girls approach their first moonblood, they begin to leave the villages and live as Unproven. Usually they leave through an apprenticeship; sometimes under the tutelage of their mothers, or often in companionship to other Wychlaran. Boys, however, are presented with a choice: They may elect to train as future Vremyonni, or they may begin preparing to leave Rasheman forever.

"Most Rashemi are well traveled on account of their Djemmas, and many our people choose lives outside of our borders, or else at least have friends and contacts in other countries. If a boy chooses to leave Rasheman, he is not merely tossed out our front doorstep. Rather, he can expect his community will find somewhere safe to place him until he has acclimated himself to the outside world and found his own path in life. But it is very true that no man may practice magic upon the soils of Rasheman for long without accepting sequestration or exile. Or _death_, if he persists, though it seldom comes to that."

Homen frowned. "What if he just chooses to abstain from magic?"

Sheilaktar shook her head. "That is a gray area," she admitted. "It is not considered a legal interpretation of Wychlaran law, but that is not say it doesn't happen. I know there are at least a few men who manage to keep their talents hidden through strict abstinence, and there are a few sympathetic witches who let them get away with it, too."

Homen shifted. "So is... is that the full reason you turned me into a girl for Midwinter?" he asked quietly. "So that I wouldn't be driven out of the country?"

She shifted. "Well, thou art technically still a child," she said slowly. "But... _yes._"

He smiled softly, realizing he was invited to stay with her for four years and longer. "Thank you." He thought about this. "The caste they assigned me was... _Unproven_. Am I under obligation to attend other Wychlaran festivals, even if I never learn a drop of magic?"

Sheilaktar hadn't thought much about this, but she nodded after a moment. "Midwinter at least. And my wards should alert me if anyone should come to visit _me_."

"So that was not my last encounter with womanhood," he concluded thoughtfully.

The witch chuckled. "I suppose it was not."


	59. Doodling

"Well, clearly we aren't going anywhere today," Sheilaktar noted as she stood and shuffled over to her work table. "Would thou like to learn how to emboss leather?"

Homen looked back at her and then quickly got to his feet. "I would love to."

For the task of embossing leather, it turned out that Sheilaktar possessed a large box of tools, dowels, stamps, clamps, knives, forks, stains, and mallets. Chief among these tools were a wide variety of styluses for applying pressure in different shapes across the surface of leather. Some of these could roll to leave behind tracks, and others were more like pens. Some were made of metal to leave crisp edges, and others were made of antler for creating more forgiving and gentle shapes.

Sheialktar settled him down with this box of tools, a bowl of water, a sponge, and a few scrap pieces of leather. She demonstrated how to create basic shapes, and then left him to practice for awhile on the material he had been given. Embossing, Homen found, required both fine motor control _and_ the ability to deliver pressure. Sheilaktar certainly had strong hands.

He enjoyed the activity, however, and before long he was practicing with creating little leaves or petals or whirls, and experimenting with how some tools could be used to create quick patterns.

Sheilaktar watched for awhile as he practiced. His gestures combined whimsical exploration with accuracy of control, and he seemed to have a natural aesthetic sensibility that flowed easily out through his fingertips. She ran her tongue thoughtfully over her lower lip. After a lengthy moment, she turned and began hunting through her cabinets for a few old vessels of sand.

"Senneta?" he asked idly as she located one of the old vases and inspected its contents. Creamy white. She set it aside and gathered up a pot of gypsum powder. Then she and shuffled over to gather some wood scraps. "Why do Wychlaran care whether men practice magic?"

She compared the length of a few scraps, and then thought to recycle an old slab of marshland ebony wood. She'd need the dark color regardless, and ebony would do the job without going through the trouble of staining it. "Magic is a woman's art," she reminded him offhandedly. The answer seemed self-evident until the moment it left her lips. Then she hesitated and looked over at her fosterling. His posture didn't change, but he also did not ask her a follow-up question.

She frowned. "It is different here than elsewhere, too. Rashemi have old, old taboos on putting the great power of our homeland into the hands of men- who cannot understand it." She gathered up a few nails and a small bow saw, and then settled down to make craftsmanship of her own. "Some Wychlaran think these ideas are outdated and unnecessarily severe."

"What do you believe?" he asked quietly but almost immediately. Sheilaktar grimaced.

"I have always thought of magic as feminine, but I remain sympathetic to Vremyonni nonetheless," she admitted. "Perhaps because I find it ironic that I was born with magic and necromancy in my veins, and they were merely born with magic and penises; and yet the latter combination is for some reason more offensive to my culture."

That startled a small laugh out of him. She straightened a little and continued:

"In an objective argument, I am afraid I find thine ability to pee while standing upright _significantly_ less threatening to life and limb than my ability to throttle dragons to death with skins I've just torn off them. But, who knows; I could be ignorant. When coupled with the sacred art of numerology, thine urine trajectory could contain the lethal secret necessary to jeapordize the stability of the entire Prime Material Plane, for all I know..."

He'd had to stop working he was laughing so much. She felt delighted to have earned such a prolonged reaction from him. She smiled to herself and then turned back to her labor, nailing her wood into shape..

Homen at last composed himself and turned about to smile at her. "I see why your Sisters lose their tempers with you," he observed wryly. "You are a little irreverent."

"A _little_?" she wondered confusedly, and earned another snicker. "Well, as to thine original question: Witches can be ruthless in their own manner, make no mistake," she decided was the most important explanation he ought to hear. "Power is important, even to those who want the best for others... and power is not a thing people easily share. Particularly when they have a suspicion it will be miused... and the excuse of a thousand years of cultural tradition, moral upbringings, and religion texts telling them to just keep doing things a way that's always worked for them."

The answer seemed to satisfy him. He nodded in understand and glanced briefly at her handiwork before returning to his leatherworking.

She finished the nailing of her craft and set to filling the corners with a quick seal of gypsum plaster so that it would not leak. He practiced embossing until his wrists were sore from the exertion. Then she came up beside him and settled her project down beside his arm. He turned to her curiously, rubbing out the kinks from his hands. It seemed she had made a shallow box of a very dark wood.

"This is for thee," Sheilaktar explained, opening up her vase of white sand and pouring a temperate amount into the box. Homen leaned over, curious and momentarily perplexed. Then Sheilaktar gave the box a few gentle shakes, and the sand smoothed out to form a creamy white layer over the dark wooden base. His eyes widened as he realized what he had been given.

Sheilaktar picked up a random stylus and leaned over to drag it across the stand. She displaced a neat line of white sand, and left behind a sharp black line where the wood showed through.

_An abax_, he realized in startlement. It was a sand table, a simple and inexpensive device by which students might practice calligraphy or edit a composition before committing their work to parchment. Red Wizards had no need for such things; paper was a luxury they had in great abundance; and Homen had only ever encountered the concept of an abax in reading about foreign countries.

Sheilaktar passed the stylus to him and he hesitated for a moment. "What is it for?" he asked, a little overwhelmed by the fact that he'd been given a writing surface; temporary as it might have been.

"Doodling," she muttered. "For... embossment ideas, of course." She left the conversation at that and turned away to busy herself with other tasks. Homen stared after her.


	60. Twelve Points

Cabin fever and an interest in obtaining meat for their stew sent Sheilaktar and Homen out into the dark and winding paths of the Orchards. Seldom had they wandered farther than an hour's journey to look for game, and usually they had traveled west in search of waterfowl or rabbit. On this occasion, however, the duo headed southward in pursuit of a stag deer whose prints were crisp against the fresh white powder.

The prints led them on, scattered here and scattered there. For awhile it seemed their quarry might keep out of their reach; but then Sheilaktar spotted fresh deer ships upon the trail and headed over to investigate. Dried deer or goat poop, Homen had learned as an aside that winter, made for excellent and remarkably innocuous-smelling tinder.

"He is old and will be big," Sheilaktar decided. "Ten or twelve points, perhaps."

"You mean, the antlers? You can tell that from his dung?" Homen wondered. It was hardly the first time he had seen Sheilaktar study animal activity in the snow, but such a detailed proclamation suggested his Hathran was quite the experienced tracker.

"And his prints. The clues to bigger pictures can often be found within their details," she remarked on standing. "We will follow and have a look at him at least. He may be too clever for us to get the jump on him."

"Who taught you to hunt, Senneta?" he asked as they trecked under twisted branches and across half-frozen fens.

"An old and very patient ranger," she told him; and it seemed to Homen this might be a longer story worth coaxing out of her later. He wondered why it had never occurred to him to ask where Nudisne had come from. After all, it was sort of unusual for a wizard to possess a dire bat. Perhaps he'd simply grown so used to _all_ of her unusual attributes.

"I want thee to be careful ahead," the witch said abruptly. "These woods grow tangled here; and thou may find them more unfriendly than I do."

"I'm not afraid of trees," Homen protested, before good sense made him reconsider his stance. "What _should_ I be afraid of?"

"Trees," Sheilaktar countered dryly.

Homen blinked at her. "I shall make a note to be more respectful towards them," he decided was the correct response.

"Respectfulness does go a long way," Sheilaktar agreed. "Wit goes the remainder. Hsst!" She grabbed his arm and made a sign for silence. They hurried forward through the brambles and bushes now brown and curling with ice. Ahead of them lolled a stretch of frozen marsh and withered tall grass. The stag was quite some distance ahead, his great head bowed that he might lap water from a small pool amid the ice.

Homen suck in a quick breath; he had never seen a live deer before coming to the orchards, but from that sample size he knew the stag was _big_. But elderly too, it seemed. His worn and patchy coat featured ragged distortions; perhaps in his youth he'd once fought a beard. Homen looked to Sheilaktar as she sized up their quarry.

Then his heart swelled with excitement, adrenalin, and pride; because the witch waved him forward to try and down the stag _alone_.


	61. Respectfulness and Wit

Homen felt incredibly disoriented. For a moment he wondered if he had concussed himself, as he had no memory of arriving in his current location; but when he lifted a hand and felt over his head, he felt no pain or discomfort. The entire time of day had changed, he was sure. It had been morning, and now it looked to be almost _twilight_.

Abruptly he recalled approaching the stag with his javelin in hand. He had known his victory depended on the sound of lapping water in the old animal's ears, blotting out the crackles of the Mulani body's approach. Yes, yes Homen remembered approaching the stag. He'd gotten closer... closer...

Homen frowned, looking up between the gnarled trees at the rich and violet-tinged sky. Countless stars were visible; more than he had ever seen in Mulsantir, and blazing brightly down between the leaves. Leaves? There was snow and ice on every branch, but all the trees had _leaves_.

A soft murmur was on the air; a hum, or perhaps just the _feeling_ of a hum. It seemed too low or too wide-spread to be real. He frowned, stepping slowly backwards. His heel came up against something, and he looked down.

A mushroom? He was standing beside incredibly large mushrooms, each easily a foot in diameter. They surrounded him in a ring of merry white domes, and centipedes over an inch in thickness and sixteen inches in length were skittering past. All manner of insect was about him. He stepped rapidly backwards, and then thought it might be important to actually _look_ where he was going lest he step on one of the creatures!

As he turned about, he came face to face with a large horse. It was white of fur and brown of eye, and it stared straight at him and docked its head to the side as if considering him.

_What in the seven hells? _his mind floundered for answers.

_'Respectfulness does go a long way,' _Sheilaktar had said to him. Homen straightened in remembrance. _'Wit goes the remainder.'_

The Mulani swallowed. "H-hello?" he blurted meekly. "I apologize if I'm not supposed to be here."

The horse gave a long, slow blink. Then it lifted its head and its jaws opened. They opened, and they opened more; wider then ought to be possible. Slithering things poked out between the lips and teeth as the full head and neck of the horse folded backwards like flower petals. Inside was a gigantic maggot head, blind and with a mouth of serrated teeth and long, delicate, feathered tendrils.

Homen's lower jaw drooped slowly. The tendrils reached out for him. He shrunk back, clutching the javelin to his chest. The horse stepped forward, its insect tendrils wriggling towards his face. He winced, and swallowed hard. The tendrils didn't... _look_ strong, or like they were intended to be used for grappling... Nor did they seem to sport any briars or stingers. They were feathery, like moth antenna. Homen shut one eye and shuddered as the lot of them brushed up against his face.

The creature seemed to study him. The tendrils fluttered over his features and hair, and he had to close both eyes alternately to keep from being poked in them.

Then, just as suddenly, it drew the tendrils back. The horse-flesh rolled back up along it's maggoty length. The 'outer head' slipped back into place, and its lips slurped back up the writhing tendrils. The horse- for it now looked like a horse again- studied him a moment longer. Then it simply walked around him, went up to the mushroom circle, and set to picking out juicy bugs to eat with its teeth.

Homen stood where it had left him for a moment, feeling thoroughly violated. He gulped in air a few times, and then shakily turned around to behold the ominous and strangely-lit forest all around him.

"Where am I?" he whispered, overwhelmed.

Salvation incarnate answered, her rich voice rising up behind him: "The Feywild."

Homen spun about to see Sheilaktar just a few steps away, using one of her bone lances as a walking stick. The Hathran looked around warily as if cautious of dangers, and reached out to steady his shoulder as she approached. He thought to feel relief at the warmth of her skin, but then he cringed slightly. "Are you real, Senneta?" he realized he needed to ask.

Sheilaktar glanced down at him in surprise. Then a smile curved her lips. She rummaged about herself and then drew out a small cannister and offered it to him. He took it hesitantly, and opened it to find it was filled with yogurt. Aha! She was showing him something which no magician would know to fake. Something only the two of them would have known about.

His shoulders slumped, and he looked up at her in relief. "How did we get here?" he wondered, shooting an unnerved glance back at the horse and the bugs. A few of the trees appeared to have moved; another one was up on it's roots and slowly crawling away. A few glowing balls were slowly meandering past

"_Thou_ fell in on thine own," Sheilaktar informed him, running her hand down to his shoulder and tugging him closer. "Much to my _surprise_. Regardless, the Feywild is not the place to hold this conversation. Quickly now: Hold fast to my arm, step where I step, and we shall walk right out of here again without trouble."

Homen looked in the direction she had turned. "I don't think I came here from that way," he remarked.

Sheilaktar glanced down at him once more. "Oh? And where is 'here,' exactly? Where is north, or south, or any other direction? Which way is home? Which way is the underworld? The world tree? How would thou navigate to meet the Mother of All Monsters, Echidna? Where and what sort of structure does Titania live?"

He swallowed, shaking, and then sheathed his javelin and placed both of his hands to her arm.

His witch pet his hair reassuringly, understanding his disorientation and fear. Then she clasped a hand over his fingers, turned, and led him off into the perpetual dusk.


	62. So That Just Happened

It seemed to Homen that they did nothing more complicated than round an old stump; then suddenly they were out in the (comparative) brightness of the Orchards. The stag was standing just a meter in front of them, with his shaggy rear end facing them and his head still lowered to the water.

Homen stumbled slightly and glanced behind him. He saw nothing but a lone stump and a short stretch of frozen fen leading back into utterly un-purple forests. More than a little unnerved, he looked up to Sheilaktar. The witch had raised a brow and seemed slightly impressed with precisely where they had ended up. She glanced down at him, and then wordlessly offered him her bone lance for use.

Ah. The stag.

The lance was nearly weightless in his hand; but it certainly flew true when he darted forward to launch it.

They would be having venison stew that night

Sheilaktar worked on making a primitive sledge of discarded pine branches, while Homen slowly dressed the kill. He was not as efficient at the task as Sheilaktar but, as with everything, he made it his first priority to learn.

They worked silently for several minutes; the work helped keep their minds occupied. Most of the offal, giblets, and bones, they would leave for wilderness scavengers. They were but one set of hunters in a very large forest, and they would offer back to nature what they did not intend to use.

Homen nearly sliced one of his own fingers off. He took in a steadying breath, and set to wrapping up the meant for transport. "S-senneta," he called to break the silence. "How did I 'fall into' the Feywild? Did I do something wrong."

"Most likely, thou crawled over a mushroom ring buried in the snow," she decided after a long pause. "That thou slipped so easily between worlds surprised me the same as it did thee; as we are hardly in the most feral pathways of the Orchards."

The Mulan child fidgeted. "Could it happen again?" he wondered quietly.

"It was most likely a spot of odd luck. But if it does _ever_ happen to you again, in all thine years here, then you are to keep thy wits about thee as thou did on this occasion. Do not trust; do not flee; do not answer any riddles incorrectly; do not eat anything; and do not insult anyone. And try to stay in one place so that I can find thee quicker."

He blinked and swallowed. "W-what happens if I _eat_ something?"

Sheilaktar glanced at him. "I don't know; the laws of poetry can be fickle: it could give you eternal life, make you a thousand feet all, wipe your memory, curse you into a pig, or steal your youth. It all depends on the context." She tilted her head to the side. "Hast thou never heard fables of what happens to folk who stumble unwittingly into faerie realms?"

Homen tried to imagine Thay so much as_ imagining the possibility__ of_ a world in which accidentally waltzing over a mushroom patch could result in _some people_ falling into a non euclidian faerie dimension founded on rules of poetry. Then he grimaced up at Sheilaktar and lifted his brows in mute answer.

"Hnh." She picked up his first packages and started tying them to the sledge.

"Senneta?" He shifted uncertainly. "You understand the Feywild?"

"What do you think?" she asked.

He hesitated over the remains of the deer. "Is... is that something you can teach me?" he asked.

She didn't answer. Spooked, he glanced over his shoulder to make sure she was still there. She was; and nothing had changed to twilight. Her face wore a look of intense concentration, and he realized she might not be able to hear him. He frowned and looked back down to his kill. Then he shook his head and went back to dressing it.


	63. Lime

When the finally reached the cottage, Homen breathed a sigh of relief. There was a sense of safety and normality to its walls that instantly grounded him, and he took a moment to just appreciate the flowery and _smell_ of the place. Rosemary and basil. The cottage tended to smell wonderfully of rosemary and basil; at least in the winter.

Sheilaktar gestured that he should tend to the hide, and though Homen had never previously handled anything larger than a rabbit skin, he presumed the procedure was the same. He set about finding their largest wash basin, filled it with water, and set to washing the hide free of dust and blood. Sheilaktar went to assemble their stew.

"How should I prepare this?" he asked as he worked, and was proud to utilize his new vocabulary: "Tanned, tawed, raw, smoked...? Do you want it cured?"

"We will use it to make vellum," she responded, and he blinked in surprise.

They were going to make parchment? He tried to decide what this meant. "So..." his thoughts shifted to how one might prepare vellum. "Tannin would brown it," he recalled. "Alum would be too soft. Do I put it in a lime bath, then?"

She smirked and his heart lifted triumphantly. He got up and headed over to their cupboards to search through the vases. He found the heavy container marked with what he _presumed_ was an alchemical symbol for lime. He inspected the contents and then returned to washing the deer leather until the water came out clear. When he was sure the hide was clean, he scooted the wash basin to the side of the room, found a washing dowel, and set to adding in the lime and stirring it.

"Is there anything I should add to the lime, then?" he wondered. It might take as long as two weeks for the hide to be ready in such cold weather. "Ash?"

"Depends on whether thou can endure eating your venison to the intense smell of rotten eggs. A teaspoon of coked mirabilite powder will get it ready for fleshing and dehairing before nightfall."

Homen was not going to miss enduring that stew for the sake of _impatience_. Though he was certainly curious as to what they needed _vellum_ for. "Can we put it in tomorrow after breakfast?" he wondered, and she nodded.

Sheilaktar gave their bubbling stew a good stir. Venison was a tough and flavorful meat, so she had chosen equally tough and nutritious vegetables to accompany it. It would take many hours, simmering at low temperatures, before the mixture became tender. When it did, they would eat like queens.

She glanced over at Homen only when there was nothing left for her to do. Khelliara had meant for him to have that stag, she thought

An idea was rising up in her belly; too quiet to hear just yet, but building in a slow and gathering crescendo.


	64. Deep in Thought

It was late.

Homen had gone to sleep over an hour ago, but Sheilaktar was restless. After ensuring all animal products would not spoil, she came up to stare accusingly down at the lime bath in which the deer hide was soaking. A frown worried at her brow. She looked slowly over at the abax, and then back down to the lime bath. With a shake of her head, she went to make some tea.

Sleep still did not find her.

Eventually she slipped out the front door of her cottage. She shuffled over to her garden in the cold dark of the Orchard's night with a broom, tea, and cushion in hand. She cleared snow from her favorite little stone bench, settled the cushion down for comfort, and then settled down that she might enjoy the warmth of her tea.

The trees did not sway; the winds were quiet that evening, and the air was still.

Sheilaktar closed her eyes. She listened to the pulse of the land in all it's rhythms; to the song of the leylines in chorus as they crossed beneath her garden. Behind her, the slender boughs of sleeping apple trees rustled gently. The calls of loons and herons rose up from distant fens, and a sudden gust whipped up through the forest.

An illuminating fog rose up in the air, and the stars pierced down through the veil of tree branches, even as leaves spread out from their gnarling branches. The cottage curled slightly behind her, its wood beams twisting into spirals and spikes at the tips and its shape warping subtly to reflect a more organic, bowed, surreal and yet protective shape. The fence contorted; low in some places and high in others, and strung about with panels of runes, twisted mandrake vines, spiked brambles, and skull-like gourds.

The apple trees bowed into steep arches above her, and their roots slithered into crescents about her bench. The plants contorted from hibernating scrub into twisted shape bearing fruits of dragonsblood, flowers of wheat bread and oyster pearls, and stems of live and lively painted gekkos forever rooted to one spot.

Feathered and beaded streamers dangled from every branch and twig, occasionally taking wing to reorient themselves elsewhere. The air was filled with motes of starlight and dancing glowballs that spun and twirled and giggled; a few drifted close to alight temporarily upon the witch's hair. Where once there had been only unremarkable lumps of stone, now countless diorite scarabs adorned the grounds, their heads, horns, and bodies worn with a thousand minute lines of gaussian pigment.

Sheilaktar took in a long, deep breath.

"_What is this call? Would thou forgiveth me should I walk such a brazen road?_" she asked quietly of the night. Her sisters never would; but there was only one woman whose permission she truly needed. Leaves trickled down from the canopy, fluttering around her in a thousand meanings too gently spoken for words. She listened, her brows drawn together and her fingers latched tightly around her tea mug as the vapors caressed her senses.


	65. Role Reversal

Sheilaktar woke slowly to the sounds of Homen moving about the cottage. He made breakfast, she thought, but perhaps she dosed after that. Eventually, the sounds of a belt knife on whetstone and sharpening steel slowly drew her back into the waking world. As she opened her eyes and blinked back sunlight, she found her fosterling perched at his work table. He had commandeered a small mirror from her supplies, and dabbed his face with a bit of aromatic oil. He drew the knife up carefully against his cheek and, bit by bit, began to shave.

She blinked slowly and then tilted her head to the side, mildly amused by him. A small part of him thought to berate him for wasting supplies for cosmetic purposes without first asking her. A larger part laughed inside, because she didn't really careful. Knowing Homen, he'd probably been extraordinarily careful in selecting whatever she needed least.

The black facial hair, thin as it might have been, had giving him a slight appearance of maturity. As he carefully shore and dabbed his face clean, he once more unveiled his youth. It was strange to think he had already been considered an adult in Thay; his throat and wrists were still so slender.

"Feeling hairy and uncouth?" she asked dryly, slipping her feet out of bed.

"Oh, good morning, Senneta," he greeted. "I actually had a thought."

"What sort of thought?" she enquired as she pushed her feet into her slippers and shuffled over to investigate their cooking pot. Breakfast had indeed been left simmering for her; eggs and 'deer bacon,' covered in a thin layer of chopped onions and cheese. She was delighted to meet it's acquaintance.

"I was thinking about how I would be expected to accompany you to some festivals... About how Midwinter was not the last time I will have to pose as a woman. And I wondered: is relying on a transmutation safe?"

"Thou doubts me?" she asked, scooping out her splendid breakfast that she might get to know it better.

"Might Yhelbruna, at least, have seen through it?" he wondered. "Perhaps I could have had the misfortune of blundering into a potent dispel?"

"It would have taken one hell of a dispel to unmake _my_ weaving by _accident_. " Sheilaktar retorted, but she seemed to be giving the idea some consideration. "I understand why thou might feel timid, however; as if thine identity had been hidden by no more than a single sheet of linen. Is that why thou shaves thy face? Because a clean-shorne jawline might temporarily hide thy gender in the event of a misstep?"

He hummed in agreement, shearing away hair from the opposite side of his face. "And I... Well, I was thinking..." A heat rose in his cheek then. He paused in shaving and looked down. Sheilaktar perked up. He was quiet for a moment before swallowing hard, shaking his head, and going back to shaving. "Nevermind."

"Well now I _must_ hear this thought," she pressed.

"I-it is a stupid idea," he disagreed, but he pulled the blade aside again as if concerned he might slip and hurt himself.

Sheilaktar tilted her head to the side. "Thou still wishes to pose it to me," she decided. "So perhaps thou should."

Homen turned a bit more red and settled the knife down. Then he heaved a dramatic sight and turned about on his stool to look at her. He chewed the inside of his lip for a moment, and looked thoughtfully about the cottage. Then he straightened up a little and tapped his fingers thoughtfully upon the work table.

"I was thinking I might assemble an outfit for Nadezdha," he explained at last.

"Whatever is wrong with thy present outfit?" Sheilaktar wondered.

"You see, I meant a _pretty_ outfit," the boy clarified. "Something distinctly feminine. It would be a second layer of disguise and help make me appear female even if, say, the transmutation spell failed entirely."

Sheilaktar raised her brows and settled back into her chair, considering the suggestion.

Homen shifted a little bashfully. "I remembered something you'd said about a padded corset back when we were in Mulsantir. Nadezdha was small-breasted, and no Hathran would bat a single eyelash to learn she wore a padded corset. At the same time, if I were abruptly transformed into a boy while wearing that corset, the padding and tight waist would-"

"-hide thy shape _perfectly_," she realized.

"I have almost the same exact build in both genders," Homen agreed, wetting his lips. "Little changes, like padding at the hips and breasts, some lace at the shoulders, and perhaps a high collar, would mask all the important clues."

"Except thy voice," Sheilaktar pointed out, but she looked very interested in this idea. "But a clandestine magic item might hide that well."

He perked up a little, emboldened when she neither laughed at him or dismissed the idea. "When I was a girl, the Rashemi women frequently commented on my appearance. I could see Nadezdha 'solving' that problem by taking a strong interest in her personal appearance. Perhaps by wearing some makeup, too?"

"Thou wishes to build for thyself a dress, a padded corset, and a kit of face paints?" Sheilaktar questioned the seventeen year old boy.

He raised his brows and then gave a small and embarassed shrug. "I wish not to die catastrophically because of facial hair, at least." He tapped the knife with his fingers. "Would... would the outfit help?" he inquired nervously.

"I am not sure, though it seems an interesting idea." Sheilaktar tilted her head to the side. Then she smirked, settled her breakfast aside, and headed over to one of her trunks. She dug through old bones and wrapped trinkets, and as-of-yet-unused furs. At the bottom she uncovered a number of old tomes, and she perused their bindings before extracting a worn leather manual.

Homen regarded the disorganized mess she left behind as she approached him, more endeared than upset. He looked up at her as she returned to him, and then blinked rapidly as she offered him the book.

"Consider this my permission to try thine experiment, boy: A tome on the seamstress' craft," Sheilaktar explained. "Complete with precise diagrams, charts, explanations, and pictures."

The Mulan boy looked up at her, his face brightening as she spoke. He looked at the tome for a moment, smoothing his thumbs over the worn leather and then carefully easing open the cover. He did not speak aloud about what it was like to be given a _book_; but when he looked back up at her face he wondered if perhaps she already understood. "Thank you," he murmured.

Sheilaktar watched a knavish smirk strike his face; and it looked all the more mischievous with half is face unshaven. "As for the precise diagrams, charts, explanations, and pictures, I expect to find you've written countless annotations on incorrect anatomical assumptions and estimations in the margins."

Sheilaktar stiffened. Homen grinned. The Hathran scowled, thwacked him harmlessly upside the back of his head. He squeaked and winced and then giggled and tried to twist away when she seized hold of him and mercilessly ruffled his hair for a moment.

"Imp," she accused. "Mockingjay, Imp, _Boy_."

"Thank you, Senneta," he hummed again, hugging the book to his chest.


	66. Seamstress

The house smelled disgusting for a good handful of hours, but then the deer hide was ready to be fleshed and dehaired. Homen worked diligently over it, his book at his elbow and the pages open for reading as his hands gently tugged pinch after pinch of hair free. Afterwards, he had to pay greater attention to the hide as he laid it over a log of firewood and scraped it free of residual fibers with a curved knife.

"Thou will stretch it upon a frame and scrape it day by day, perhaps for a period of one week," Sheilaktar explained. "It depends on how long it takes to reach the thinness we wish, and thou may need to wet, dry, or salt it in the in-between."

"What are we going to use the vellum for?" he asked as she set to grinding up ingredients for potions.

"...I haven't decided," was her answer, and he accepted it with a grain of salt. He got the sensation she planned to make a trip somewhere, soon.

Once the skin was thoroughly scraped for the day and he had stretched it tight across a frame, the art of needlework took up the boy's attention that afternoon. Winter was a good time for such projects, and he spent the first day playing with measuring tape and jotting down numbers on his abax. He took out a number of the fabrics he had purchased at the festival, and made charcoal marks upon them; but each time he picked the fabric up to examine it, he found he had made some error.

Tailoring was not as easy as it looked, he found.

On the second day, Sheilaktar taught him to feel the consistency of his drying hide. She had him sponged it, and them taught him to scrape it with delicate care in an effort to bring it to an even thinness. Afterwards, he returned to his fabrics and began drawing his first good patterns with a lump of charcoal. Sheilaktar eventually came up to investigate, and she helped him use pins to pinch and hold the fabric so that Homen could see if it had the proper dimensions. It did not have the proper dimensions.

"If thou wishes the breasts to hold a firm shape," the witch suggested as he made his corrections, "thou might consider making it more of a hauberk, with cured and boiled leather."

"But then they wouldn't be squishy," Homen disagreed, to which Sheilaktar really had no reply other than to laugh.

"Well in that case, thou should smuggle some specially made, tightly sealed waterskins into each of them," the witch snickered.

He blinked, perking up and tapping his lips. "That's brilliant," he concluded, and his Hathran laughed even harder.

On the third day, Homen set down to scraping without any needed instruction. He finished the work in half the time and then immediately returned to needlepoint.

Sheilaktar could not help but grin at the fabrics he was choosing. Homen stopped at nothing; and it seemed he planned to line the corset with ruffled lace. "What is a crinoline?" he asked her as he worked, flipping through pages of his book.

The witch laughed. "Too formal and impractical for any living creature in Rasheman to even remotely consider wearing," Sheilaktar responded.

"Oh dear," he had found a picture. "That's silly. Where did this book come from?"

"Cornmyr," she chuckled, and Homen looked up at her.

"Have you traveled far?" he wondered of his enigmatic mentor, "or did you buy it from a merchant?"

"I am traveled. My Dejemma took me farthest from home of all. But, afterwards, I returned to Rasheman to settle down."

Homen thought it sounded strange to 'settle down' in one's twenties, particularly without a household in the making, and when one seemed to be a very bossy, talented and adventurous person. He supposed, though, that Sheilaktar had few ambitions. Her life had not been particularly easy, either, and it often sounded like she was glad to have found some place she felt she belonged: the Orchards. At present, however, Homen wondered if he had heard a slight edge of _guilt_ in her voice.

"Where did you go for your Dejemma?" he asked, for he knew little about the ritual right of passage other than it was a somewhat arbitrary journey which many Rashemi- particularly witches and berserkers- partook of upon reaching adulthood.

"Chult," Sheilaktar said, startling a fresh wave of surprise out of Homen.

_Chult_?_ The Jungle? You went to the polar opposite end of Faerun? Why? Just because you could?_ He had many questions, but it did not seem Sheilaktar wished to speak of her travels, so he dropped the topic.

Homen looked back down to his book and carefully flipped through the pages. "A petticoat, then," he realized. "That's how I can add some volume and layers."

_Homen Odesseiron; sewing himself a corset and petticoat. _Sheilaktar shook her head, grinned fiercely so as not to laugh at him, and went back to her brewing. _You truly are not what anyone might have expected, child. You are much more._


	67. Materials

"We have hemp cord, some wood, and reed," Sheilaktar called from where she was picking through the materials available to them in the cottage. "Doest thou know which material thou would like?"

"All three, since I hardly know what I am doing," Homen admitted. "I am considering sewing a hatch in this thing so that it can be fixed later when it fails catastrophically."

"That is probably for the best," Sheilaktar chuckled, carrying the supplies over to where he was working. "Thou did not pick an easy project to learn on."

"The petticoat was simple enough," he disagreed, for it had been. The corset, with all its slots, measurements, panels, curves, and unknowns; was obviously harder. "The vellum doesn't look ready yet," Homen reported off-handedly as he sewed.

"It will take a few more days," she agreed as she settled the three boning materials down beside him. He glanced at them, and then looked back at his half-finished corset.

"Do _you_ have a recommendation on what I should use?" he thought to ask.

"Hemp," she answered without hesitation. "Use a bit of reed or wood boning under the bosom to support whatever thou stuffs in there, and some at the hips to give it shapeliness."

"Why hemp?" he wondered. "It would be less rigid. Isn't it half the point for it to maintain an unyielding shape?" When Sheilaktar said nothing, he looked up to see her standing with her arms crossed over her chest and an irritable expression on his face. Homen blinked momentarily and then grinned. "You want to say something about anatomy," he deduced swiftly.

The necromancer scowled.

"I won't tease you, Sennta," he promised with a grin, patting his project. "I'm making myself a _dress_. I won't tease_ you _if you won't tease me."

His witch gave a heavy sigh. "Very well. Only noblewomen and whores use exceptionally tight and rigid corsets. Such contraptions actually shift organs and rib bones when they are worn religiously. That is their purpose: to distort female bodies into unnaturally waspish shapes. Noblewomen can get away with this because they are responsible for no real work; and apparently do not actually need to breather.

"But a real corset's only_ genuine _function is to support a hardworking woman's breasts so that they aren't swinging about unsupervised while she's tilling ground. Its design is good; it has been extended for use in everything from hauberks, to climbing harnesses and, of course, to the strangling things worn by noblewomen.

"This is a garment thou may end up donning for days at a time whilst running about and making trouble. It needs to be comfortable and utilitarian; and its primary purpose is to hide fake curves. Bone it with hemp, and it will be sturdy enough to give thee the proper shape, but flexible enough that thou can bend over. It is more forgiving and thou shall minimize the risk of hurting thyself or restricting air flow if thou guesses the dimensions wrong. Besides, thou art so slender and devoid of fat that I could not recommend pinching thy waist much narrower than it already is. Just focus on accentuating the breasts and hips."

"And, in addition, I seem to remember thou mentioning something about wanting 'them' to be 'squishy'. So: Hemp."

Homen was quiet a moment, looking down at the fabric in his lap. "I feel like you should be helping me with this," he realized meekly.

She laughed and returned to her brewing. She'd clearly been working on something over the last few days; but he hadn't asked what it was, yet. "What says I am not? My own clothing is boned slightly with hemp and reed about the bosom," she explained. "But thou will learn nothing if I do this project _for_ thee. Carry on, little Mockingjay."

_Today's list of things which reaffirmed my masculinity, _Homen thought as he went back to sewing his own corset, _Number One: I learned something about Sheilaktar's breasts._


	68. The Key to Independence

The days passed in a calm fashion as Sheilaktar attended to her brews and her carvings; and as Homen sewed garments and scraped vellum. Each day he worked on it, frequently pausing to fit fabric against himself in case he'd veered off course.

The atmosphere of the cottage was quiet and reassuring. He'd taken note that the cold weather seemed to make Nudisdne drowsy, and that she spent the majority of each day napping. Whenever she awoke, she would bother one of them for fruit. Homen was usually closest, and she was skilled in seducing a good five-minute scratching session out of him. Eventually she started curling up with her head in his lap; so he would lay his needle work out over top of her thick neck and work for a few hours until she crawled away to bed.

The corset, however, was not being friendly to him. Whenever he got frustrated with it, he set to work on the dress. So when the dress was functionally finished, he added layers and embellishments. And when the embellishments were done, he created a few sets of feminine hose.

By the time the hose was most thoroughly complete, the corset still lay unfinished.

The damn thing seemed keen on thwarting him _every step of the way_.

Every time he succeeded at getting one thing to work, two others broke. He ended up Fracturing a great number of reeds, and eventually was forced to peel open the garments and retrace his steps in replacing all the boning channels with a stronger fabric. By trying to do less work in not entirely removing the backing, he ended up doing more work at an awkward angle.

_Butter Churning, _he reminded himself, and that did help make him feel better. He was an _exquisite _butter maker, after all, and that had taken quite a bit of patience.

But now he was flustered; so he decided he'd _knit_ whenever the corset got the best of him. Nythra had only just barely begun to teach him the basic techniques of knitting, but he thought he'd be able to figure out the rest. Besides, he'd seen that knitted garments had some elasticity to them, and that was an interesting property to study.

...

It took a few days for the vellum to reach the proper thinness, and by then the skin had stretched tremendously in surface area. Sheilaktar then instructed him on how to mix a deliming powder from chalk and other residues. She gave him a rough stone with which to gently rub the mixture into the hide. The process, she explained, would prepare the vellum for taking ink. The vellum was a lovely, pale manilla when he finished with it.

But then, maddeningly, she gave him no more instructions. The vellum sat there, day after day, begging for a purpose, and she gave it none. He didn't bother asking her what they planned to do with it; he knew she would tell him that she hadn't decided yet. But left at it was, it was setting his fingers to itching. He wanted to touch it. He wanted to use it. He wanted to sketch on it; to write on it; to draw on it; to do _anything_ with it; or to watch _her_ do something with it!

Being a wizard had never left him, he concluded with a sigh over Nudisne's head and a disobedient undergarment. Books, paper, ink; these things had somehow been woven into his very nature.

...

Enough. He would start the corset over from scratch. His existing piece was in quite a sorry state; it had been stretched, frayed, edited, and hemmed so many times that it was starting to slump and bulge unpleasantly in places. Perhaps he had learned enough by trial and error to do things _right _this time.

Armed with this new approach, Homen gently ushered Nudisne to bed and then went to haul out his many fabric options from storage. He searched through the earthy colors first; oranges, yellows, tans, browns and greens. But not reds. Memories of being pelted with vegetables, and the shout that _Thayvian's should be Red _still lingered on the edge of his mind as he selected his fabrics.

_Last time I attempted to use a piece of yellow fabric that was much too delicate_,_ and I ran out of it as I was fixing things;_ he concluded as he felt through the different cloths. _And I gave it a backing that was brittle and stiff._

After a moment, he selected a dull, cyan-colored bolt of material, and unraveled some of the length. He felt the thickness between his fingers, and then coiled it in a loose cylinder and lifted it upright. It retained its shape. _This might work. _He played with the fabric a little longer, paying attention to how it took stitches, breathed, stretched, warped, and reacted to water.

An old idiom came to mind: that sometimes it was faster to start over from scratch than to keep working with what one already had.

The patterns came to him swiftly this time, though he double and triple checked them to make sure his measurements were right. The first seams were easy The channels were straightforward. Yet he forgot to fit it against himself in the in-between; and when he did so after the channels had been made, he realized one of his pins had slipped while stitching, and that he'd inadvertently sewed a panel of the corset at an angle.

...

Homen moaned, tossing down his work and trudging over to his bed. "I give up," he mumbled frustratedly as he threw himself onto the blankets. "That needlework will always defy me. But you know what? That's fine; it was a silly idea anyway, and we should just forget about it."

The witch prodded him with a unheated fire stirrer. "No thou doesn't, no I don't, no that won't, no it wasn't, and no we shan't," she informed him with a grin.

Homen heaved a dramatic and exasperated sigh, and she laughed at his juvenile antics. _He's healthier, _she realized. _A boy instead of a ghost. A sweet, considerate, but very human boy. _

"Take a nap," she warmly advised. "Then settle thyself in front of the fire, pour some warm water into a basin with a few droplets of tea tree oil and rose oil, and spend the time to wash thyself. Wash thy hair, face, hands, and feet in particular. Wash thy shoulders and back. Then compose thyself and eat a good lunch. Thou needs nothing more than a clear head."

A clear head sounded nice. He considered her suggestions. "Can we go out hunting?" he asked hopefully.

"I am preparing for a different sort of trip," she told him.

He frowned. "When?"

"I am waiting for thou to finish this disguise of thine. I will be visiting with acquaintances, and it is a perfect time for thou to test the outfit."

Homen propped himself up on his forearms. "I'm coming with you?" he realized, his eyes widening. "Does that mean you be turning me into a woman again, then?"

"I am not the world's only Wychlaran, and that farmers and fae will find it strange to see me wandering around with a Thayvian boy. Even while out hunting, we could have a rare chance encounter... " her voice lowered to a mutter, "or fall into the Feywild..." It rose back to normal levels. "Thou cannot be seen, as such."

He nodded in acceptance, looking down thoughtfully. Sheilaktar had _never_ taken him out of the cottage except to hunt before. Who would they be meeting with?

His Hathran was quiet for a moment before suddenly adding: "But then I recall that thou is working on a garment to appear as a woman... And I wonder if it might not give thou more control over thine own safety than thou realizes..."

Homen's gaze flicked up to her. He hesitated a moment, and then glanced over at his work station.

Technically speaking, couldn't he wear it _without_ being a girl first?

... Technically speaking, he supposed he actually _could_.


	69. You make me laugh

It was just prior to dawn.

Homen rolled up the hose first; they were dark brown with an overlapping pattern of maple leaves trailing up the sides in tan. The air was freezing as he pulled them on over his legs. He made a mental note about better undergarments, before pulling on his new knitted stockings over the top of the hose. Next came the petticoats, layered for warmth.

He slipped the new chemise over his head, and then slowly picked up the dull aqua corset. He wasn't sure who to pray to. Would the Trinity Goddess be offended by his presumptuousness in speaking to her.

He set to pulling it on, tethering one shoulder strap at a time to keep it in place. Then he wormed to see his reflection in their tiny mirror, and set to work on the laces.

And worked on them... and worked on them... and worked on them...

Sheilaktar climbed, yawning, out of bed. She stretched, got her slippers on, and was halfway to her tea before she noticed Homen Odesseiron perched on his work desk at an odd angle, in ruffled skirts and lace-trimmed stockings.

He looked up at her quietly, red-cheeked and with his fingers entangled in laces behind him. Then he looked off at nothing.

"Could you help me?" he requested resignedly.

Sheilaktar blinked sleepily for a moment. Then a smirk tugged wide across the side of her face. She looked down at her tea to compose herself for a brief moment. Then, when she was no longer on the verge of laughing, she shuffled up to him and gestured that he should turn around.

"Thank you, Senneta," he mumbled quietly, sliding off of the desk and turning about so she could see the laces. She shook her head and gathered up his hair in hand so she could press it over one of his shoulders and keep it out of the way.

The early morning lighting was poor, he realized when she depressed lightly on his shoulders. He leaned over the work space so she could see, resting his elbows against the wood and looking quietly out the magicked window to distract himself from how silly this was.

Sheilaktar threaded the laces hole by hole and tied them at the end. Then she started to pull them taut, tugging out the excess lace at the center of the bodice. It took some time to get all of them closed.

"This is one of the strangest things I have ever done," he blurted at last.

"This is not even remotely close to my top ten," his witch responded with a lazy grin. "But it is one of the more endearing strange things I have ever done, I shall give thee that."

She couldn't see if he blushed, but he scratched at his chin in what she recognized was a self conscious gesture. She chuckled and finished up the lacing, tying the remaining slack length into a firm bow. "There." She patted his shoulder and stood back.

Homen eased himself upright and looked down at the garment. The first oddity was that he had a small hill in the way of seeing himself; that had never happened before, even as a girl. A startled smile worked its way over his face, and he smoothed his fingers over the fabric.

The garment was behaving itself. He lifted his arms a little, and twisted slightly and stretched. The garment remained affixed to him like a form-fitted glove. "It didn't spontaneously ignite or dissolve into jelly!" he announced dramatically and then laughed. "I-it works-!"

He turned to show off himself, and she stood back to take a look at him. The corset had sculpted panels on either hip to make them appear wider, but it's most noticeable augmentation was obviously its bust. The front of the garment rose from his underarms to his collar, neatly concealing the complete lack of cleavage which would have given away the fake breasts.

"Hmph," she wasn't sure what to say. "Well, finish dressing thyself."

The air was freezing, so he didn't waste a moment in taking her advice; he gathered up the dress and pulled it on over his head, tugging the pleats and bodice and lace all into their appropriate positions.

Sheilaktar went to obtain her tea and breakfast as Homen tied the dress laces into place at his side. When she turned back to him, a lanky boy had somehow transformed himself into a curvaceous young girl. The waist was narrow, the bust could be perceived in the forward swell of the dress, and the hips and butt were undeniably rounded and pleasing to the eyes. She skirt dripped about him to the calves in thick green and tan cotton, and spouted hints of yellow lace between the pleats.

"How do I look?" he asked, and Sheilaktar was honestly startled not to hear a high skylark's voice.

"Nothing at all like thou sounds," was her perplexed answer, her brows raised up in surprise.

He blinked in confusion for a moment and then leaned with one hip out, flicked his hair, tilted forward, batted his eyelashes, and raised his voice into a falsetto. "What about now?"

Sheilaktar blinked at him slowly. Then she snickered. The snicker turned into a giggle, which turned into a laugh, and then she had to sit down she was laughing so hard.

Homen looked terribly upset.

She was on the verge of tears, and she held out a hand and fluttered it reassuringly in his direction. "N-no one-!" she gasped between laughs. "No one can make me laugh like thou can! No one! I-in all my life!"

Homen weighed and measured this. He continued to look uncertain for a moment, but then a smirk tugged at his mouth. Within moments, he was laughing, too.

Sheilaktar beckoned him forward and stood when she was again able. She plucked at his sleeves and straightened his shoulders. "Thou look uncannily pretty," she laughed, before taking his face between her palms and framing it to more clearly see his features. "Mmm. Mulani are so sharp-angled," she remarked.

"I need to learn to make paints," he was sure.

"Thou art yet soft with youth," she countered. "But too thin; perhaps we might make use of pigment to soften thee further. It is surprising, what small and subtle differences we base so much of our daily judgement upon..." She got a far-off look for a brief moment, but then smiled and patted his cheek. "Do thy chores to test this garment's warmth. I shall eat. And then, let us see if I still know how to make a bit of rouge, mm?"


	70. Duo

"Not warm enough," a lovely Homen Odesseiron reported after he had finished milking the goats. His cheeks were ruddy from the chill and he was chafing his arms through the dress.

Sheilaktar had gathered a few sources of red pigment on a cutting board for them to experiment with, and she settled it down at his work station. "Hmm," she replied as if she had expected this. "Very well, come here. I can teach thou a thing or two about paints today."

Homen nodded and came up to peer down at what she'd given him. "Is there a difference between paint and dye?" he asked curiously, as she drifted over to perused her shelves for additional ingredients.

"Dye is used to _stain_ things to their inner fibers," she called back to him. "Paint is applied on the outside of things, as a coating, and typically dries there."

"Then dye is used in fabrics?" he concluded, sitting down to touch the little piles of dried flowers, berries, earthy red stones, clays, raisins, and roots. Sheilaktar returned to him and settled down a bottle of vegetable oil and another of essential oil. He looked up at her.

"There are two vital ingredients to consider when making paints. The first is the medium, and the second is the pigment," she explained. "Mediums are used to spread the pigment onto a surface and hold it there and, depending on context, they each have different strengths and weaknesses. Fatty substances are common mediums: egg yolks, oil, grease.

"As for pigments, one can make pigment from nearly anything," the witch continued as she settled down the bottles. "Every berry, weed, or mineral that might stain one's clothes can be made into paint. Many fade with time. Every shade is subtly different. And when it comes to pigments, the rules are simpler for when to use what: thou should not put poisonous things on thy face."

"Aha. Noted." She ruffled his hair, and moved off again to obtain a mortar and pestle and a soft goat hair brush.

"What thou art going to do today is crush up the different rouge pigments into fine powder. Each shade will look and behave slightly differently. Pick the one thou prefers. Then dab thy cheeks with a droplet of oil, rub it in, and brush the rouge lightly on top."

Homen nodded understandingly, taking the tools from her as she returned. "Which color do you think will work best?" he asked.

"How should _I_ know?" she asked in amusement. "Even if I shared thy skin color, hast thou _ever_ seen me in feminine paints?"

His face brightened. "When you were dancing as a sacrificial ram you wore paints," he decided cheekily, picking up some of the ochre to grind first. Of course, those might not strictly speaking have been 'feminine paints,' but Sheilaktar silhouetted by a fire and covered in yellow stripes was, without contest, the most glorious state in which he had ever seen any woman.

Sheilaktar rolled her eyes and turned away to stoke the fire. "Each batch of nature's materials is slightly different from the last. I shall teach thee the foundation skills for making cosmetic paints, because that is what thou requires of me. As to the matter of hue, saturation, brightness, and viscosity, that is for thine aesthetic sensibilities to settle upon. I have many hobbies: pointless fussing in a mirror is _not_ one of them.."

Homen chuckled, and set to grinding. He paused, briefly, and looked down at himself. He was still in a dress.

After a moment, he shrugged and went back to grinding.

"I am stacking the fire high," Sheilaktar warned him," so it should get warmer in here soon."

"What for?" he asked, rubbing some of the ground ocher curiously against the back of his hand. It was an earthy, brown red. Nothing like the colors he was used to seeing in Thay. Somehow, that made it better.

"Make thy pigments child," she told him with a smirk. "I'll tell thee in a bit."

Homen looked back at her, a mischievous smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Am I so pretty? Are you going to cook me and eat me, Senneta?" he asked a little wickedly.

Sheilaktar dropped the fire stirrer as if stung and nearly jumped out of her skin. She spun about to look at him with a wide-eyed expression.

Homen straightened in surprise and alarm. "I was just teasing-!" he breathed out in rapid dismay.

She was quiet for a moment, just staring at him. Then she looked away and leaned heavily upon the mantelpiece.

He left his chair with a hurried scrape, and came up beside her. There he hesitated, not certain how best to apologize. "Senneta," he murmured, placing a hand uncertainly upon her shoulder. "I'm sorry; I did not mean to _hurt_ you."

His witch took a deep breath and then looked over at him a little resignedly. "Thou did called me 'terrifying' at Midwinter," she recalled.

Homen paused. Then he smiled a little. "Beautiful, terrifying, unfriendly, and pugnacious on the exterior; but secretly filled with warm and fluffy custard on the inside. That is my witch, no?"

She stood upright and frowned at him, as if perplexed.

"S-senneta... Are you okay?" He stepped closer to her, hesitantly trying to initiate a hug.

"Custard," she repeated, trying to make sure she had heard him correctly.

"It was the softest, warmest, and sweetest thing I could think of," he admitted, watching her face for signs of insecurity. "How is it made?"

"With egg yolks, if I recall," she answered. "If thou wishes to keep chickens, thou art welcome; but they're easily startled, smell, and shit all over the place... Ducks, I have no problem with ducks. How dost thou feel about digging a pond?"

He stepped slowly into her, smoothing his arms around her waist and hugging her. Sheilaktar fell silent with a slight crack of her voice. After a moment, she turned fully towards him and hugged him back tightly. From there, Homen was uncertain how to reassure her. He lifted a hand, slowly, and pet hesitantly over her thick hair and its untamed curls. A long silence passed between them, and he stroked through her hair again.

That Sheilaktar cared so much for what he thought about her was new to him. He wasn't used to seeing cracks in her scales. Perhaps the hag's death had left a heavy impact on her; or perhaps years of being judged for her necromancy had taken a mental toll. _I'm sorry. You must know I didn't mean it. __Please be okay. Put it out of mind. Please...? _He pet her hair a third time.

"Well," Sheilaktar concluded at last, and it sounded as if she had composed herself. She took in a deep breath. "I should congratulate thee on a project well executed: _'They'_ are most certainly '_squishy_.'"

He grinned into her hair, squeezed her, and said absolutely nothing to the effect of 'well yours are still much better.'


	71. Whores and Circus Clowns

The first thing Sheilaktar did upon seeing Homen's makeup application was grab a wash cloth, dip it in soapy water, and come up to wipe his face clean.

"What?" he protested, confused.

"Thou art trying to look like an attractive girl; not a stage clown," she chuckled. "Not so bold; not so much; not like _that_."

He was flustered. "But how _should_ I do it then? You won't advise me."

"Ah? But thou art so very talented with employing trial and error," she mused wryly. At his pout, she relented, "Very well, perhaps I do know some small thing about rouge. Thou ought to go for a light, subtle pink. Place it here in light circles," she traced along his cheekbones. "Thou should only need one load of powder. Then, as thou run out, use the brush to blend the edges into your skin, in a long oval.

Homen looked, bemused, at the powder brush. "Can you show me?" he requested.

"I can supervise thee," she decided.

It took two more applications before Sheilaktar deemed the result was presentable. Having satisfied her, he took a curious moment to study himself in the mirror. "You can hardly see it," he remarked.

"That is the _point_ of rouge," she chuckled as she stood and fished through their jars of preserved berries. "Particularly in thine own case. The powder may be subtle on inspection, but the overall effect is great." She selected a jar of tightly packed and preserved cranberries, and then came back to him.

"Hmm." He looked up at her and then at the cranberries. "Lips?" he supposed immediately.

"Cranberry juice is one of nature's finest red dyes," Sheilaktar agreed, extracting one of the mashed berries with a spoon and then pinching it between an old washcloth. "And, unlike paints, it will leave behind bright pink stains everywhere thou misapplies it. Open thy mouth a little, I shall help thee."

Homen obeyed her. She leaned close to him and smeared the berry gently over both lips, and then told him to wait for a moment for it to set before licking the residue off. He did as she instructed, and then held out the little mirror at arm's length so he could inspect the whole of himself.

What he saw, startled him. It was like looking at a portrait of another person. After a moment's inspection, he concluded something was still missing. On impulse, he headed over to the fire. The temperature was remarkably hot. He saw Sheilaktar had built a small fort of bricks within the blaze, which now housed a walnut-sized crucible.  
_  
__Oh?_

This was curious, but he was actually after a spot of charcoal at present. Careful not to disturb her work, Homen used a fire stirrer to sift through the ashes and dug out a nice little chunk of black. He picked the charcoal up with a cloth so as not to get it all over his hands, brought it over to his table, and settled it down.

Sheilaktar put her cranberries away, and glanced back at him curiously. He ground up the charcoal, found a stiff brush, and began working a few drops of mixed oil into the pigment. Thayvians did use one type of makeup across both genders, Sheilaktar recalled: men and women both applied black kohls and inks to their eyelids and brows. Often, she'd heard, this was in lieu of any real hairs or lashes.

Homen glanced up as Sheilaktar returned to give him a wooden knife. He took it with a murmur of thanks, and set to crushing the charcoal pigments into oblivion. The resulting paint grew smoother and smoother. It was not precisely perfect, and it certainly wasn't what he was used to working with, but he loaded it up on a fine, stiff-haired brush and began applying it to the very edge of the upper eyelid, accentuating the lashes. He drew in the top lash of one eye, and then the other, and then he rubbed a few droplets of clean oil onto the rest of the eyelid.

Homen loaded up some of the charcoal powder onto one edge of powder and eyed it. This next step was something he'd only ever seen. After a moment, he dabbed the brush lightly on his arm to see how dark it was. Satisfied, he leaned closed to the mirror and brushed a light smoke of charcoal over each eyelid to match the subtlety of the rouge.

He examined himself and then looked up at her hopefully. "Did it work?"

Sheilaktar squinted at him, wrinkled her nose, and grinned. "Thou looks like a whore," she told him bluntly, "who is covering up a black eye."

Homen pouted in amusement. Sheilaktar was nothing if not straightforward. He looked back to the mirror and dabbed most of the charcoal back out. "Do you have a smaller brush? A soft paintbrush?"

She fished among their things and brought him just such a brush. He took it, and furrowed his brow as she tried to picture Mulani or Rashemi women. _Come now, I can remember this,_ he chided himself. _Did I not watch Leonlai apply it ten thousand times?_

_It should look like a hawk's or beast's eyes,_ he concluded. _There needs to be a distinct and graceful arc._ He looked at the mirror and tried again to apply the paint. This time he was much neater about the edges, and drew them in very lightly before blending as gently as he could. When he was done, he dabbed off some of the strongest pigment.

Subtle, he tried to remind himself. Uncertain whether he'd been any more successful ts time than last, he frowned up at Sheilaktar again. "Thou can hardly notice it," she remarked, patting his shoulder and then weaving her way back over to the fire.

Homen beamed. He stood up from his chair and drew the mirror out that he might have a complete look at himself. Looking back at him was an unmistakably feminine character! And not precisely a _Thayvian_ girl, either! He recalled saying that 'Nadezdha's' reason for creating this costume would be to help her fit in with her Rashemi peers. It seemed Homen was heading in the right direction.

How convincing he appeared, without a drop of magic involved! He was hidden beneath nothing more than cleverly designed clothing and a few dabs of pigment! Wait. There was something else he needed. He combed fingers through his hair. Then he settled the mirror down and tried to give himself a braid. He managed to get the first few twists into place, and then he leaned over to see what it looked like.

_Ah. My hair is so thin,_ was his first, dismayed thought. When Rashemi women wore braids, they looked like thick, spiraling ropes, and showed off many subtle color variations. When his hair was braided, his scalp showed through around the base, and the result was incredibly narrow and boringly black.

With a pout, he released the braid. Then he tried to make one using hair further back, hair his long bangs would partially cover. After some experimentation, he managed to get one thin braid to lay attractively behind his ear and down over his shoulder. _Hmm_. Perhaps there was some means by which he might fake thicker hair. He'd have to study the problem more thoroughly, later.

"Aha! The enamel is ready," Sheilaktar announced. By the tone of her voice, she was a little excited. 


	72. Fosterling?

[Author's Note: Surthay is nearing it's end. That's the bad news. The good news is that Surthay II will come out immediately afterwards :)]

* * *

Homen looked over to see that Sheilatar was stirring a bowl at her own table. "The enamel is ready," she repeated, standing up. "The pendant is ready; the components are ready; the crucible is ready... Good! Come here, I need thy hands," she bade him swiftly.

Homen settled down the mirror and came up hurriedly to assist. She gave him a brief glance and a small grin, apparently still amused by the sight of him in dress and makeup. He didn't blame her, _he_ was still amused by the sight of himself.

"Take this paste," she explained to him as she eased the bowl and spoon into his hands, "stir it, and keep it at this consistency. Add water by droplets if it thickens."

The Mulan boy did as he was instructed, churning the paste in its bowl. It smelled like clay, but it did not look quite right. "What is it?"

"Paste for enamel. Made of frit, slurry, cobalt dust, and medium," Sheilaktar explained as she gathered up a tin packet, a bundle of prepared herbs, and an intricately carved but largely abstract looking disk of horn. "When fired in our makeshift little kiln, it will harden to enamel. We will put it just so," she ran a finger over the horn item and showed it to him, "into the pockets I have carved into this pendant. I have already proofed the horn itself for the firing."

_Enamel? This is a kind of artistic glass, then,_ he realized. He took a moment to appreciate his witch. The average Red Wizard could not have survived two days if abandoned in the wilderness, even with the use of their magic. And here Sheilaktar could make her own _jewelry?_ The contrast was as sharp as night and day, and brought a wide smile to his face. For a brief moment he thought that he was almost grateful for the coup that had brought him to Rasheman. Then he thought of everyone who had died, and felt incredibly guilty.

Sheilaktar seized her chair and dragged it over to his work-space. He wondered for a moment if she stealing his table because it was _cleaner_, which amused him, until he realized it was both closer to the fire and had the benefit of a well-lit window sitting right in front of it.

The witch set aside his pigments and settled down her own work materials She straightened, opened up the tin packet, and drew forth a stick of something white. Homen stiffened, a strange flutter of anticipation rising in his chest. Confusion bloomed to excitement as he recognized the stick for what it was: Chalk. Sheilaktar was going to work spellery. They were not making simple jewelry; they were crafting a magic item.

"Come here," the witch called with a subdued, but, strangely, almost conspiratorial tone to her voice. "Thou may watch."

_Wait. What? _Homen's eyes widened. Then he tried not to trip over himself as he darted to the chair beside her. She took her seat with much more grace, flicked an amused smirk this way, tipped her chalk to the wood table, and begin to draw. Sigils flowed out from under her hand, twirling in patterns so strange and yet so intimately familiar. Homen glanced breathlessly up at his mentor, and then back at her work. He watched every stroke of the chalk with rapt attention, and his fingers tingled.

Wychlaran magical forms were so incredibly different from wizarding as taught elsewhere in the world! So loose, so flourished and yet somehow so incredibly balanced and geometric! It was like an old friend in new clothing: Magic!

_Why do you permit me to see this?_ he could not help but wonder, awed and humbled by her faith in him. _Why would you invite me to look at magic, any form of magic, much less the art of Rasheman; even if its sigils are beyond my ken? Why would you risk tempting me; knowing my gender, my race; knowing what I've been, knowing what blood runs in me?_ He glanced uncertainly at her face, then back at the spirals, torn between which he ought to spend brain-power trying to interprit.

_Thank you. Thank you for letting me see such things, even if I can never... Thank you for letting me be near magic._

_...Thank you._

When she had finished drawing the spell circle, she settled down the chalk and took up the horn. "Watch closely, boy," she told him. "Thine hands are steadier than mine, so I will show you how to apply the paste, and then I wish thee to assist me in completing the piece while I begin the enchantment."

_An apprentice,_ Homen thought. _This is how an apprentice would help you. _He searched her face for a moment before looking swiftly to her work, as he dare not botch applying the paste.

_Sheilaktar, Senneta, what are you *doing*?_


	73. A Little Bird

Surthay will come to an end in a few chapters. Surthay II shall begin immediately afterward :)

I did some art of Homen/Nadezdha on my Deviantart page, which you can find through my profile.

* * *

_"Be ready to travel early tomorrow morning. I suspect we will be gone most of the day."_

The boy's eyes flicked open well before the coming of dawn. He sat up quickly and rubbed his face. What had he been dreaming about? It hadn't been restful, but it also hadn't been a nightmare.

His gaze drifted to where the finished horn and enamel pendant sat cooling upon a rack in its crucible, now long removed from the hearth. Then he glanced over to his work table, where chalk dust from Sheilaktar's magic still lingered.

Homen took a steadying breath, unnerved, curious, and undeservedly excited.

A trip. They would be taking a trip. He reached down to appraise the loosened corset he'd elected to sleep in. The garment was surprisingly comfortable, and bent at the waist as it was intended to do: clothing for a peasant, and not for a noble. He settled his arms across himself for a moment, very nearly hugging the outfit.

_I cannot believe I made a dress and female underthings for myself. _His mouth twitched into a nervous smile, and then he was grinning whole-heartedly. _If Nythra knew... If it wouldn't be suicidal to tell her...! Ha!_

Nythra.

He thought of Nythra rather than any of his academy peers, even after only knowing the witch for seven days. It was strange to _like_ someone so much. The strained and competitive relationships he'd known in Thay could not hold candles to the warmth he'd been shown by some of the Rashemi. And the only ways in which Nythra was _dangerous_, after all, corresponded directly with how awful a creature Homen himself had once been.

He'd thought of Nythra before considering the reactions of any of his family members, too. Perhap his family was as dead in his daydreams as they were in reality.

Homen had liked his mother and father, the boy concluded faintly as his mind drifted downed unpleasant tunnels. He had liked them, and he had most probably loved them, if somewhat distantly. And he had been interested in the wellbeing of his younger siblings; enough that watching as they were eaten alive had brought their names to his lips, instead of merely demoralizing or irritating him.

_These are not good or useful thoughts. The voice in which I hear them is barely mind, and sounds as unnatural to me as if I'd been possessed by something._

Homen straightened and pushed the past back into storage. He felt over himself and then slowly eased his legs out of bed.

_The next time I make a corset, I am putting the laces in the sides, where I can reach them_. He set to tightening the garment up again, and then reached out for his dress. Sheilaktar had said something about testing his disguise on this trip.

His witch awoke as he was out feeding the goats, and when he returned she glanced down to see the pleats of his skirt beneathe his cloak.

"Good," she said, seeing that he was ready for travel. "But that coat is unflattering and undoes half the work thou hast put into this outfit."

Homen glanced down and saw that this was largely true; it was impossible, for instance, to discern any of the useful visual effects of the corset. "I'll have to make something," he realized, which was somewhat unfortunate. He loved the coat Sheilaktar had made for him, and the witch had gone to all the trouble of lining it with rabbit fur.

"There is no time for that now," Sheilaktar dismissed that idea. "I could lend you something of mind. Though..." she crossed her arms and leaned backwards, scratching thoughtfully at her chin. "Nothing of mine would complement the spritely look thou appears to be cultivating." Homen glanced down at himself.

_I have just been compared to a faerie. Do I feel pride? Glee? Emasculation? Enough embarrassment to fell a dragon? All four simultaneously? _He dropped his arms and smirked helplessly at Sheilaktar.

She straightened thoughtful. "Hmm, I may have _something_. A gift I never used..." The witch turned and headed over to one of her many trunks, and began to dig through supplies.

Homen shrugged to himself and started shedding his coat. _Maybe I should just get used to accepting my sometimes-femininity, and leave the embarassment for lesser men with far less attractive clothing._

"Aha!" the witch announced, standing up with a beautiful, green velvet cloak that had been draped in white lace and lined with light-colored fur. His eyes widened slightly, for it looked expensive and high-quality. "This would be suiting," Sheilaktar agreed with herself, "It is a gift from thy little Robin friend, who spent several seasons trying ineffectually to change my wardrobe composition."

Homen tried to imagine Sheilaktar dressing anything at all like Nythra of Seven Rivers, and he failed miserably. Sheilaktar cast the new garment about his shoulders, and then stood back to examine him.

"Give some sort of, I don't know, girlish twirl," she solicited.

Homen cracked up laughing, and tried to do as was requested of him. His 'girlish twirls' clearly needed work.

"_Perfect_," she announced regardless, and then turned and went over to where the crucible had cooled on its rack. "Thou needeth only thine face paints then, and one last, final piece." Homen looked to her and then stepped closer as she opened the crucible and withdrew the gleaming pendant. Rich, blue cobalt glass, like sapphires, gleamed out from the engraved runes and aesthetic whirls which Sheilaktar had engraved into the horn disk.

His witch took up a thong of brown leather, and laced it through a hole in the disk. She tied off the end in a necklace, and then turned and gave it to him.

"Put this on, boy," she told him, and Homen wagered he already understood the purpose of the item. He donned the necklace and then tried to speak:

"Are we still going on a trip today? To where?" His voice came out high-pitched and womanly.

"Ha!" the witch clapped, proud of her handiwork. "Perfect! Exactly perfect! Goddess above, you sound like a _bird_, child!"

Homen laughed, thrilled that his disguise was perfect without a single organ displaced. "I sound exactly the same!"

"Yes! Yes, _Nadezdha_," the Wychlaran chuckled smugly. "You do. Good. We'll leave as soon as I've eaten." She ruffled his hair. "And thou shalt see _where_ soon enough...!"


	74. Under and Over

The day was like any other as they began to walk: quiet, cold, white, and enwreathed in snaking gray branches and gnarled trunks for as far as the eye could see. They had embarked to the east, which was a direction Homen knew they had never before headed in, but the scenery seemed no different: It was still a patchwork of marshlands, hills, and rocky cliff faces, and it was still choked to bursting with somewhat intimidating plant life.

No indeed, Homen thought as he picked his way across a marshy thicket, trying to avoid slipping on rock hard ice or the clumps of tallgrass hidden beneath the snow, which could easily induce a twisted ankle. The scenery did not appear any different.

At first.

They passed over a hill and through a stand of trees, where the branches curled and laced overhead such that ambient light reached through, but the sky itself could not be scene. Yet as they emerged on the other side, they found themselves at the top of a short cliff face midway down the side of a waterfall. Ahead of them, an old black log spanned the gap over the river below, draped in a shawl of icles.

Homen followed Sheilaktar up to the log and then paused. He turned a furrowed brow onto the waterfall. _How did I not hear this from farther away?_

He glanced back in the direction they had come from, and stiffened when a black, dense forest stared out at him. The only bit of daylight visible through those branches was a speck at the end of the 'tunnel' they'd walked through. Visually speaking, the difference in light levels did not look _possible_; nor did he remember bypassing any space which looked so _dark_.

All at once he became aware of the white motes of _something_ drifting off the waterfall foam and dancing about whimsically through the air. The sky above was still a crisp, gray overcast against the trees, but it seemed _different_ somehow, or surreal, and a purpled darkness lurked on its edges. Beneath them, something large and finned slithered quietly through the frigid river.

_The Feywild. _

"Sh-sheilaktar-?" Homen asked, and was surprised to hear his own voice: _Female._

Nadezdha turned back to see- thank the _goddess!_\- that Sheilaktar was waiting right beside her. The dark skinned woman wore a_ knowing _smile upon her face, and she reached out to steady the Mulani girl's shoulder reassuringly. "Keep thy wits about thee," the witch instructed her, and then she gestured to the log bridge which they would cross. "Thou may look around at thy leisure, but thou is not to _stray_ from my path. Not once."

Nadezdha took in a slow breath, and then nodded quickly. Her mentor smiled at her; smiled as proudly and mischievously as she had smiled that morning; and then stepped out onto the log. Nadezdha followed in her footsteps, and could not help the giddy smile which touched her face.

_Today is going to be odd...!_


	75. Never Judge a Book By Its Cover

They were walking along the winding interior of a hollowed log that ran up along the length of several hills, and which had been opened to the sky. Moss spilled in cascades over lumps of wood, and slender blue mushrooms, many almost as tall as a man, shimmered with a metallic gleam.

The branches of the trees above them were thick with marshland fisher birds and brightly colored birds of paradise. Enormous locusts, some as long across as a cat or dog, clung to rippling tree bark in all directions, motionless but for the strumming chords of their hind legs.

In the distance and to the north, Nadezdha could see at least one great tree rising out from between the many branches. Its form was twisted in a cloak of snow and black bark. If he squinted, he could see tiny steps chiseled in spirals around the structure, delineating a path one might surmount the gigantic tree like a mountain. High above the stairs, in branches still thick with leaves and now coated in ice, the edges of windows, floors, and bridges could be seen.

Nadezdha stared up at these structures in fascination, wondering who lived there and how. Elves, perhaps? Then the lip of their hill had occluded the tree, and she turned her gaze wondrously back to the right.

Across a short gap, great frog statues sat on raised pedestals of ancient stone and vivacious lotus flowers. They were draped in moss and snow, and seemed eternally balanced at the precipice of being reclaimed by the forest. Icicles rimmed their features, dripping water, unending, tinkling, into misty pools many paces beneathe them. Great, white cranes roosted temporarily upon the statues. Above them, blue will-o-wisps danced gaily through the dangling leaves of willow trees. The air was thick with the calls of marshland wildlife.

"We will be passing the Kelpies," Sheilaktar told her. "No matter their interest in thee, and despite what actions I take, thou art never to touch them. They appear as no more than beautiful, docile horses, but that disguise has earned them many a meal."

Their path took them down to where brackish marshlands steamed warm through the frigid air, and live bullfrogs inspected them contemplatively as they passed. Giant insects, such as centipedes and beetles, skittered free of the path.

Nadezdha noted the water was littered with reeds, tufts of grass and mud, and therefore appeared to be only a few inches deep. She expected that they would be trudging through it to reach a path visible on the opposite side, and was glad to have wrapped her boots. But Sheilaktar turned off along a rocky little outcropping and began to walk around the edge of the marsh instead.

Nadezdha followed closely. She glanced back at the water. And no sooner had she and Sheilaktar traveled five paces than the surface of the water rippled off of a massive object. A reptile, large enough to swallow cattle whole, poked its great jaws out into the air. It seemed to grin, whatever it was; a wide grin across its toothy maw.

Sheilaktar seemed unconcerned by it. Nadezdha affected to be unconcerned by it (though she remained close on Sheilaktar's heel). Moments later, it receded back into the marsh, and disappeared entirely back into what appeared to be no more than a muddy puddle.

"Eh, Sheilaktar? Is everything in the Feywild supposed to be uncannily and misleadingly lethal?"

The witch laughed. "No. But, here, there is seldom any relationship whatsoever between the appearance of a thing and its temperament. It is a terrible place to make entirely natural assumptions, for neither space nor symbolism holds consistent here."

"Should I simply assume everything is lethal, then?" the Mulani girl wondered, waiting for a stray toad to cross her path before proceeding onward.

"Neither that," the dark woman shook her head. "Heavens forbid thou should spurn benevolent aid, or turn a cold shoulder against some god or faerie in disguise who has elected to test thine character. No, Nadezdha, this is the best advice I can give thee: Take the time to tilt they head to the side, and think, and devise the game or riddle or rule that governs a situation. Always keep thy wits about thee, know thineself, and pay closer attention to what thou cannot see than to what thou can. Each part of the Feywild has its role, and while nonsensical to the outside, each nevertheless makes perfect sense within its own scope." 


	76. Body Language

Kelpies were beautiful, white horses who stood looking lost, lonely, and delicate along the reeds of the marshy riverbed. Nadezdha had never heard of such creatures before. When at last she could see them, she realized what Sheilaktar had meant about inconsistent symbolism. After all, Kelpies wore the same 'pure' and 'innocent' ivory color as unicorns, and any well-meaning traveler could have easily formed the wrong impression about them.

As they drew closer, the first Kelpie lifted her head from where she had been grazing on reeds, and looked mournfully up at them. She was larger than Nadezdha had realized from afar, and not at all 'delicate.' She was as strong and tall as any heavy war charger, and only the length and slenderness of her legs and neck gave any illusion that she was deer-like.

Sheilaktar strode past her with a quiet nod. The Kelpie looked to her, and then to Nadezdha. Her eyes were deep, beautiful, blue pools framed by lushiously dark eyelashes. Nadezdha paused, brow furrowing. _Fae. Those eyes are fae._

Homen had once owned a horse, and although he'd seldom had any chance to ride, Nadezdha was still familiar enough with such animals that she could sense the dissonant errors in the Kelpie's appearance. She tilted her head to the side.

The Kelpie did not have rectangular pupils, as would have been normal in a horse or other grazing animal. Rather, the eyes were frog-like, with three horizontal and conjoined circles comprising the pupil. One supposed this might mean that Kelpies were amphibious, and could either breathe under water or else hold their breaths for considerable durations of time. Perhaps they killed prey by drowning them?

A thrill like lightning shot along Nadezdha's spine, shrieking into an alarmed question: _How close am I standing that I can see her pupils?_

Awareness of her surroundings returned. She hadn't moved from the path (she wagered that she had enchantment and conjuration training to thank for that!), but she had clearly been standing in the same place for the better part of five minutes. The Kelpie's adorable white nose was an inch away from Nadezdha's own.

Nadezdha glanced wide-eyed in the direction Sheilaktar had gone. The witch was still there, waiting patiently and looking unsurprised with this development

Nadezdha looked back to the Kelpie, swallowed hard, and then gave a polite curtsy (A curtsy! But if she had bowed, she would have had to step back and left the path or else leaned forward and risked touching the Kepie!). "Good morning," she whispered politely, and then tried to hurry along after Sheilaktar.

The Kelpie didn't move but to watch her go.

{We will talk in a bit,} Sheilaktar whispered reassuringly as Nadezdha caught up with her. Then the witch turned back onto their path and walked forward, looking as unaffected as ever. Although the Mulani girl was somewhat shaken, Nadezdha straightened up and followed. She tried to mimic her Hathran's patient confidence and untouchable grace in the moment; A mockingjay's intuition supposed that appearances, body language, and first impressions might be quite important when dealing with carnivorous Fae.


	77. Salutations!

There were six Kelpies in total. Despite their predatory nature, they seemed content to graze on cattails and marsh grasses, and to watch as Sheilaktar and Nadezdha passed them by. All of them looked to be female, though Nadezdha was no expert.

Sheilaktar did not seek to circumvent the creatures. Her path wound lazily and comfortably between them, and several lifted their heads as she drew near. One Kelpie stepped closer to the witch. Sheilaktar reached out almost casually to brush her fingertips over the beast's withers and shoulder, and paused momentarily to say something in a language Nadezdha did not understand. _Sylvan?_

Nadezdha slipped after her mentor, shyly meeting frog-like stares and nodding politely to each of them. She could not be as _confident_ as Sheilaktar, because just as surely as she'd been entranced a few moments ago, now she felt a strange, haunting _threat_ hanging in the air, and some of the Kelpies had come to stand uncomfortably close. Still, she could act with utmost respect, and the fae creatures seemed to find such behavior acceptable.

Then Sheilaktar and Nadezdha had moved onward from the Kelpies.

"I was expecting to have to rescue thee," the witch admitted with a sly grin over her shoulder. "I seem to forget what a level-headed child thou art under pressure."

Nadezdha thought of her meeting with Okku, and immediately felt bashful for such praise. _Level-headed! Leonali would scold us for the nervousness which showed in our gait, on our face, in just walking across this marsh! _

_Yes. This existentially questionable marsh in a parallel world where poetic storytelling can warp space, _he scolded his thoughts. _Hush; Leonlai would perish here, if not from the wildlife then from indignity that such a place exists at all._

Ahead of them, a number of trees picked themselves up on their roots, and calmly began to stroll across the forest floor like great octopuses. A copse of enormous, spotted red mushrooms fluttered like floppy bread dough in the wind. As he watched, two of the mushrooms took flight and their bells flared out like a lady's skirts. They seemed to have quite a number of brightly colored snails affixed to them, all of whom went along for the ride as if this were entirely normal. The wind carried the mushrooms off, and they calmly drifted away that they might find somewhere else to grow.

All of this would have been fascinating enough to look at on its lonesome,but Nadezdha was suddenly attacked by jets of bubbles and tiny trumpet sounds. She flinched in surprise, and then looked up to see a large number of seahorses with hummingbird wings fluttering overhead and peering down at her.

"_Those _are friendly," Sheilaktar informed her wryly.

"What are they?" Nadezdha squeaked, as some of the tiny things came down to invade her personal space and give her a more thorough visual examination. Whatever they found must have pleased them, because they folded up their wings and drifted down to coil their tails about her hair, fingers, and clothing features. Soon she was covered in no less than a dozen little happy flying seahorses, all of whom were trumpeting and blowing bubbles.

"They're humminghorses. Of course," Sheilaktar grinned, as if she knew precisely how ridiculous this sounded.

"Of course," Nadezdha meeped through a wide grin, trying furiously to avoid busting out laughing lest she accidentally frighten the creatures. "They tickle."

"Indeed, they do. And I'm quite happy they seem to like you much more than they like me." Sheilaktar brushed her crowfeather cloak, as if to be molested by such adorable creatures would have been a gross indignity. At this, some of the humminghorses fluttered immediately near to her. She gave them an evil eye, and waved furiously at them.

This time, Nadezdha broke out laughing, and, although she startled the little creatures, a good two dozen ended up roosting all over her once they realized what she was doing.

Sheilaktar said something again in that language which she did not understand (_Sylvan?_) and Nadezdha looked about in surprise. Then she stiffened, realizing that the tree standing beside them was, well, _not_ a tree. It was a leg. A leg which looked like a tree, and happened to be attached to a lanky and gnarled-looking ent who was leaning over to peer at both of them.

Nadezdha's lower jaw drooped. She had _heard_ of ents, of course, and Homen had seen rare crushed spell components and wooden items made from entwood in Thay. But here, in the Orchards, in the _Feywild_, this being was taller than any giantkin, wurm, or dragon, and of a scope so massive that even comprehending it at close range was nearly impossible. She was, Nadezdha realized, as tall as its_ biggest toe_.

"This is my apprentice," Sheilaktar spoke in Rashemi now, perhaps to include Nadezdha in the conversation. "I am bringing her to see the court, for the very first time."

The ent's face wrinkled up more, if such a think could be said to have been possible; roots and ridges of bark all curling up to better frame its eyes. There was a bird's nest in the smile lines of its left eye. On further inspection, a herd of goats was riding on its head. Very small, very distant goats...

The ent took in a slow breath, which sounded as wind rippling through an entire forest. It expended it in a large, rumbling gush, and the warm, reverberating tone suggested to Nadezdha that it was most probably _female_:

"Heellllloooo llllittttlllee onnneeee... ..."

Nadezdha swallowed dryly for a moment, immobilized. Then a few of the humming horses nudged her chin, and her mind came back to the present with a startled blink. "S-salutations!" she called nervously but brightly up to the being.

The ent smiled. Her smile was so wide that it might as well have been a boat. It lit up her eyes and her whole face, and NAdezhda immediately felt incredibly successful just for causing it.

"Salllllluuuuuutaaaattiioonnnssss... ...!"


	78. Brave

They had stopped to converse with the ent for over an hour, primarily because it took the massive lady some time to say much of anything, and then she tended to use a great number of highly specific adjectives. She had a name which Nadezdha was unfortunately unable to pronounce, but which sounded somewhat like '_Withehhwithick,' _and suited her most admirably, and she was treeherder, which of course sounded like quite the sensible occupation.

Withehhwithick was in the middle of telling them about her route, which involved traveling widdershins around the Glipsy thaumic node, which of course Nadezdha had never heard of but found fascinating, when Sheilaktar managed to wind down the conversation so that they could continue onward. Withehhwithick waved after them with a hand the size of their cottage, and Nadezdha walked backwards so that she could wave back.

As they traveled, the Mulani girl detached humminghorses and shooed them off so that they could return to pollinating skylillies. A few, however, continued to linger despite all urgings to the contrary. As Sheilaktar and Nadezdha walked on, and as the Ent and mushrooms and the majority of the humminghorses disappeared far behind them, it became clear that at least three of the tiny humminghorses had decided to accompany them on their journey that morning.

"Is it that you want to be friends, then?" Nadezdha asked them, trying not to trip as she looked upward and followed Sheilaktar simultaneously. The humminghorses curled up all excitedly and looked to one another. Then they looked down at Nadezhda and bobbed their heads rapidly. "Well then! Would you like to hide inside my hood?" she offered. "It seems cold out."

Two blew bubbles all over the place, thrilled with this idea, and immediately dove down into the warmth of Nadezdha's hood. The third, who was black, instead decided to camouflage herself in Nadezdha's hair. The Mulani girl giggled, and pet the tiny creature's head.

_I think you are laying on 'being a girl' a little thick, _an unamused thought pattern chastised him/her.

_Ha! Shut up, I'm_ _the most adorable cross-dressing knave of a boy, ever, and that's that. _He smooched a humminghorse's nose.

His new friend's tiny trumpet sounds smothered over a reptilian fragment's inarticulate disgust, and left Homen laughing. As he walked though, something occurred to him, and so Hom-_Nadezdha _hopped after Sheilaktar, and reached up to gently tug on her sleeve "What did you mean," she asked, "about taking me to 'the court'?"

"The Faerie Court," Sheilaktar explained. "Though you will not be able to meet Titania until spring comes."

Nadezdha took a slow breath and licked her lips thoughtfully, because she'd caught Sheilaktar's useage of 'the first time' earlier, and _this_ seemed to confirm her suspicions: "Then, I will be coming into the Feywild with you again?" she asked quietly.

The witch glanced back at her, this time looking thoughtful instead of mischievous. "I am considering it."

_A test, then. This is a sort of test or trial. _Nadezdha released her mentor's shoulder and contemplated what she'd seen thus far that day. Her face paled a little. _A test of me, or a test of my sewing skills? Oh goddess. If I had known-! If I had realized-! _Her eyes widened and she touched self consciously at her face, wondering if her makeup was still intact.

"I should not have let that slip," Sheilaktar chuckled as if guessing her mind. "Your anxiety will betray you."

_My anxiety will-!? _

Reptile and bird formed a consensus: Nadezdha lifted her chin high, and pet reassuringly at her humminghorse. "It will most certainly _not_," she told the older woman haughtily. "I can be as unaffected as you."

The necromancer smirked. "Of course you can."

Nadezdha's eyes widened and she glared daggers up at the Hathran's back.

"But then who would entertain the humminghorses?"

Nadezdha blinked and looked at her stowaways. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and eyeballed Sheilaktar's cloak. _Well. Okay. Maybe not 'unaffected...'_ She tapped her fingers against the arm of her dress, and then tilted her head to the side._ Brave, then?_

They passed a stand of silver trees, and then they were looking up into what felt like a _valley_ between the roots of three ancient trees so old and big that they would have dwarfed gigantic ents. Small hills and marble structures jutted out from the ripples of their bark there was simply so much space to _fit_ things, and waterfalls coursed down their sides. Across the 'valley' and spiraling up the trees in all directions, was a metropolis of light and life. It was sculpted from gigantic monoliths stone, and grown from silvery wood, and in many places it defied gravity all-together and floated about on wings or sails or blue crystal.

Nadezdha came up short, her lips parting as she looked down the winding, rune-carved staircase which would take them downward into the single largest and most alien-looking city Homen Odesseiron had ever seen. Seven or eight of Bezantur would have fit within its sheltering roots alone, without even considering whether other parts of the trees were also inhabited.

Not much in the way of real detail could be seen of it from such a distance, yet. Not much, except for the twenty-odd coppery-looking dragons lounging around lazily on floating islands and the grooves of tree bark.

_Brave. _


	79. Young and Pretty

The inhabitants of the fae metropolis were soft-spoken and graceful... and for some strange reason, Nadezdha suspicioned this was linked to the time of year. The city seemed to embody winter herself: somber, tinkling, and draped in veils of ice and snow.

The people who called this their home paused in their tasks in to watch briefly as Sheilaktar and Nadezdha passed by. None of them looked particularly hostile, nor did he see any disgruntled or disgusted expression- at least not of the faces he could most easily read.

The most noticeable and prominent civilians were creatures Sheilaktar called 'Eladrin.' They looked like primeval elves and stood tall and thin, with exaggerated faerie features eyes like an animal's. Some male and some female, all tall and elegant, they glided leisurely through their city while dressed in elaborately styled and trimmed robes. They had an unearthly and almost haunting beauty, and left no footprints wherever they walked. Many seemed to have gauzy wings trailing behind them, but also many did not.

In addition to the Eladrin, Nadezdha saw a seemingly infinite parade of other life forms: from pixies, to water fey, to nymphs and dryads; to all manner of diminutive sprite, plump goblinoid, or odd half-animal. It went well beyond saying that the city had more types of fae than she had names for; it also had more than she had descriptive adjectives. Beautiful, ugly, aquatic, arboreal, arctic, temperate, gnarled, evanescent; they were varied limitlessly!

Nadezdha twisted about left and right in an effort to see everything at once. It was hard to do so without losing Sheilaktar; and soon she realized the Fae might have _respected_ Sheilaktar, but they otherwise had little concept of personal space. Some of the smaller and grimier creatures reached out to try and touch her cloak and legs from the underneath of bridges and the cracks between ornate carvings. Others seemed to have no problem getting quite literally underfoot, and Nadezdha nearly tripped over a few strange little goblins and rat people.

Sheilaktar didn't seem to be getting any of this attention. Seeing this, Nadezdha hurried to close the gap between herself and her master. A few pixies darted up near her face just then, apparently with the attention of touching or perhaps stealing strands of her hair. They were chased off by the ferocious bubble-trumpeting of a humminghorse troupe. Nadezdha tugged her hood down partially over her face, and shyly came up directly to her witch's cloak. "Are they all staring at us or at _me_?" she asked in a small voice.

"You are new," Sheilaktar confirmed her suspicions. "You are pretty, and you are young. They like the look of you."

_Like the look of-?_ _That is certainly a vote of approval for my seamstress skills. _the younger girl blushed slightly and patted her humminghorses thankfully. "What is this city?" she asked softly with a glance back behind her. What an indescribably beautiful and _massive place...!_

"This is the capital," Sheilaktar explained. "We have traveled _deep_ into the Feywild as opposed to far across her face. Here we have reached the neck of an hourglass, so to speak."

"Why did you bring me here?" the girl asked wondrously, looking up as a dozen gigantic white moths swooped overhead.

"I was called on to settle a dispute," the necromancer told him.

"You? Of what kind?"

"A mortal has fallen afoul of the Winter Court," she answered grimly. "The Summer Court is holding the accused until I can resolve the situation. I warn you, I will need to arbitrate this matter according to the laws of the fae, or else lose all their respect for me. There is a good chance this day's outcome will not be bright."


	80. Omnivorous

Nadezdha and Sheilaktar crossed a bridge spanning twinned waterfalls of syrup and honey, both of which seemed to course merrily along at the fast-running past of water until drawn out on sticks or apples or other creative goodies. They passed districts of stately marble, and others of squat cottages and twisted witches huts dangling out of gnarled trees that most certainly defied gravity.

"I am going to cast on thee so that the Sylvan language is interpreted in thine ears," Sheilaktar explained. "Though many of the subtleties may escape thee. Fae like to speak in double-meaning, colloquialisms, and riddles."

"Is it misleading in the same fashion as Infernal?" Nadezdha asked as her mentor began to weave.

"No. Infernal is tricky but, when understood to its fullest, is pedantically and extraordinarily precise. Sylvan is intentionally vague, and when understood to its fullest, well, it tends to be vaguer still. This is to leave room for misinterpretation, rhyming, debate, bargaining, posturing, and speech-making."

"I... see."

At last, the two of them came to an ancient, open-air temple of great blue stones. Much of it was coated moss or sheltered in great willow trees. In the center were consecutive stone circles similar to but far larger than those Nadezdha had seen in Mulsantir. A natural bowl depression around each ring allowed natural tiers of earth to form, and in places these tiers had been augmented by stone steps.

Clustered near the center were many creatures, some of which were clearly observers, and other of whom were arguing. A screaming, hysterical woman could be heard above the other voices.

The primary representatives were again Eladrin, though these all had gossamer wings and appeared less elvish and more fae. Each was exotically beautiful and had distinctive markings across his or her skin. Their features were heavily exaggerated: large eyes, small mouths, and pointed chins, noses, and cheeks. They had thick, feathered antenna against equally thick hair, and the majority of them seemed to be dressed in armor made from a blending of giant leaves, insect carapace, fur, and mithral. The bulk of them looked annoyed, frustrated, or sympathetic, and all of them looked tired.

In addition to the Eladrin were other creatures, including talking animals, goblinoids, a very disgusted looking nymph, two hags, a few positively demonic looking individuals, and a few dwarvish creatures wearing different colored hats who leered at one another and occasionally shouted out elaborate insults about events and people long forgotten by everyone else.

As the High Eldarin took note of Sheilaktar's approach, they stood a little straighter and their expressions turned from exhaustion to relief immediately. A few even gave polite bows or nods to the Hathran. Then they noticed Nadezdha, and began to murmur curiously to one another and smile. This was somewhat disconcerting, primarily as she learned not only that Eladran had pointed teeth, but also that their smiles could stretch unnaturally far across their faces.

After a brief hesitation, Nadezdha concluded that sharp-toothed, quasi-benevolent fae made a strange form of sense for the Feywild, and so she nodded politely but soundlessly and stayed close on her mentor's tail.

The hysterical woman, whom one could presume was at the center of all this trouble, grew more audible as they drew nearer.


	81. A Matter of Payment

When at last they stepped into the center of the meeting area, Sheilaktar was greeted by relieved sighs of "Wychlaran!" The torrent of bidirectional shrieking and name-calling halted almost immediately.

Nadezdha looked quickly about, trying to get a sense for the situation at hand. She could see two groups of very similar Eladrin who had nevertheless visibly sorted themselves into 'sides.' One group had guards surrounding what appeared to be a wealthy Rashemi woman. Her clothing was torn and sullied and her makeup had been smeared across her face by tear tracks. Behind her was a shaken-looking man who was holding a swaddled child in arm.

Across from them, a beautiful Eldarin man in white and blue robes with sharp aquamarine nails at least five inches in length gestured tiredly at the guards. "Sheilaktar, at last. This argument has swollen absurdly out of hand. Can you settle this matter before things grow even more ridiculous?"

Sheilaktar strode up to take a place near the center of the debate, and looked with furrowed brows and affected aloofness from party to party. "What dispute takes place here?" she queried, turning to the long-nailed Eladrin.

"These-!" shrieked the woman demandingly, but Sheilaktar waved at her with two fingers and abruptly the woman's mouth had not only sealed shut but entirely disappeared from her face. Nadezdha jumped slightly, and her eyes widened.

"Thou will speak only when spoken to," Sheilaktar told the woman callously. "Thou will answer my questions as I ask them. Thou will speak calmly, and concisely, and tell me only the truth as plainly as thou art able. This is no small trouble thou has stumbled into."

Then Sheilaktar looked back to the de facto leader of the assembled Wintry persons, the long-nailed Eladrin, who explained himself without missing a beat: "These Summer fools think to deny one of our own his rightful payment, all because of his small stature," he gestured to a mischevious and gremlin-like dwarf with a long and pointed noise.

"'Twas an agreement," the dwarvish-gremlin thing hummed. "And 'tis an insult of me honor and good humor to have it slighted so."

"Just so," the Winter Eladrin sniffed. "The Summer guards have dragged out and escalated this argument for_ days_ now, despite having no case. Half of us you see assembled now- Winter and Summer both- were dragged away from far more important- or at least _interesting_\- endeavors just to argue over something that ought not to even be an issue in the first place."

"I see," Sheilaktar said, and then she looked to the Summer guards and the captive woman. "And what is the stance of the mortal party?" With a wave of her hand, the woman's mouth reopened from her face.

So horrified was the woman as a result of having part of her face temporarily eschewed by no discernable physical rules, that she could not muster an answer. One of the guards cleared his throat, and answered on her behalf: She looked to her guards. "We think there is a possibility that the deal might be illegal, according to both our own provisions and good sense and also the agreements made with the Wychlaran."

"Then I shall see if this is so. Venerable bargain-maker," Sheilaktar said, turning to the dwarf-thing, "tell me of the agreement."

"'Twas three requests for help she made," he explained, straightening his belt with both hands. "And three things she asked for each time. Beauty, fame, and fortune she wanted; and she had no means to obtain them. I and mine heard her wailing, we did, and went to see what we could do for her."

"And did the woman use these gifts well?" Sheilaktar asked, though it did not seem to Nadezdha that this was relevant to the trial. The dwarf-gremlin thing, however, ginned; and the Wintry folk around him seemed even more predatory as he answered:

"It is not the case that she did. Each time she squandered her gifts and returned crying unto our stones for more of what she'd been given. When she came the fourth time, we collected our payment as she had originally agreed to." "What payment was this?" Sheilaktar prompted.

"Each time a boon was granted, three times in all," the dwarf explained, "she agreed to the exchange of a soul. The first time she was an ugly spinster-" Nadezdha found it strange how many people nodded disapprovingly at this part in the story, "-but took a great time to deliberate. At last she sold us the soul of her as-yet unconceived and unconceived-of first born child, perhaps thinking herself clever.

"The second time, she hummed and hawed regretfully, but sold us the soul of her future husband. The third time she was in such a hurry she was almost irritated we took so long to accept her _own_ soul as valid payment, stained though it was.

"Now it has been many decades since the first boon was granted, and we wish to collect our dues: three souls, as specified."


	82. When Law is Performance Art

While Nadezdha tried to figure out which was the bigger crime to Fae: ugliness or vanity, Sheilaktar stood tall and considered the issue.

At last the witch turned to the accused woman, and asked a question which was so practical that it clearly startled all the magical creatures present: "What on all Faerun, woman, would possess thee to deal in _souls _with the Winter Court?"

"Now just a moment," the dwarf-thing protested. "That bargain was honest, and the boon was real-" But he only got so far before Sheilaktar stole his mouth as well, and he was forced to wait his turn just as surely as anyone else.

The Rashemi woman looked around shakily at the court, her face still streaked with tears. Then she looked up at Sheilaktar and swallowed hard. "What they offered, it was not what it seemed-!"

"It never is!" the witch scolded. "Did thine mother not surround thee in cautionary tales as a child? Wast thou not brought up to respect the dark places of the forest, and the people who dwell there!? Stupid _child_!" she berated, and thou this woman was clearly older than Sheilaktar, her shortness of stature seem to give the 'child' comment more weight. "Thou had every opportunity to turn away, and thou delivered thyself unto damnation! How dare thou feel cheated? How dare thou feel _contempt_? The only thing thou ought to feel is _shame_."

The woman gaped at her in shock.

"I know well what thou attempted. Thou had neither husband nor child when thou made these deals. Two boons thou could have stolen for free. The implicit price was that thou had to remain unmarried and childless all thy days. Thou could have had great wealth, great beauty, and great fame; and thy benefactor would have gained nothing from thee!

"Yet he banked both on thy selfishness and your greed, and thou delivered in full! Thou married, thou conceived a child, and thou returned for a third boon. How dare thou feel anything but shame? I could understand this brashness if thou had risked only thyself in exchange for an opportunity to do something possible but thou knowingly damned a man and child for no reason more than thy own base comforts."

Shaking, the Rashemi woman slipped to her knees.

"By what right doest thou claim freedom from them?" Sheilaktar asked. "Doest thou think there is anything I can do for thee? Doest thou think we Hathran are somehow above the law of the land? That your humanity should force protection from those who are not human? _Child_!"

"Please," the woman begged as she found her breath at last, "they did not say they would collect on the souls before we were dead. They did not ask for me, or my firstborn, but for our _souls_. What right have they to our bodies? We are not yet dead!"

Sheilaktar took a deep breath through the nose and lifted her head as she considered this. "Thou hast not discarded thy last wit then," she remarked.

The rest of the Fae were watching with eager curiousity, and seemed to have liked both Sheilaktar's tirade _and_ the fact that the Rashemi woman had found a compelling answer. Nadezdha looked between all the assembled parties in astonishment, not the last of which at Sheilaktar herself. _This is like theatre_, the young Mulani girl realized. _The winner will be the most convincing performer...!_

Then the Eladrin was quick to retort: "She is right about the body, but to that there is a simple resolution: We remove the soul from the flesh."

The Rashemi woman stiffened. "I did not pay with our lives, either!"

"No," the Eladrin agreed, "but who is to say that life belongs to your soul as opposed to your body? Your body will live, as long as it is able, even without your soul. No time of collection was specified, and none can be inferred by her."

The Rashemi woman recoiled. Nadezdha looked up at the Eladrin in astonishment, and felt eerily like she might well as have walked in on a discussion with Demogorgon.

Sheilaktar returned the dwarf-thing's mouth to it then. "What do you say to this?" she asked in the interest of fairness.

"That we were generous to give her the time she did have!" the dwarf-gremlin explained. There was nothing in the agreement suggesting we ought not to collect on our price immediately, before she had time to enjoy it!"

The Hathran nodded, but then waved her hand for everyone to settle down. "Listen to me all: Mortal and immortal, Wintry and Summertime, venerable bargainer and foolish hedonist. I have come to a realization. There is an issue with this deal, just as the Summer guards suspected," Sheilaktar explained.

"'Tis not so," the dwarf-thing protested, but he listened all the same.

"There has been one overlooked variable," Sheilaktar continued. "For although the woman was the head of her household, she is not the only owner of all which exists beneath its roof. And to you, venerable bargainer, she has attempted to sell that which does not belong to her. The soul of her husband was never hers to bargain with, for it was not sold from him to her, and she has no ownership of it."

A brief pause of silence Then the fae broke out in a cacophony of excited chatter with one another, and it was clear they found this fantastic more interesting than anything else.


	83. The Verdict

"What about the wedding vows which they spoke?" The Winter Eladrin asked at last. "Could they not have implied transferred ownership of the soul in question?"

This immediately required the casting of several scrying spells by both accusers and defenders, who began conferring with one-another over wording. It seemed that while the vows spoken at the woman's wedding implied the binding of lives, they did not accidentally imply the ownership of one person to another.

And if they had, as Sheilaktar pointed out, then the woman would not have been able to sell her own soul, owed to the husband's preexisting ownership of it. Hearing this, the Wintry Court quickly dismissed their vow-based argument. It seemed they wanted the wife's soul far more than they were interested in her husband's.

"This reasoning, sound it is," the dwarf-thing admitted begrudgingly. "So there are only two souls to be transferred."

"There is but _one_ soul thou can rightly claim, master bargainer," Sheilaktar informed him almost sympathetically. "According to present Rashemi law, as this woman is not Wychlaran, she is not the sole legal custodian of her family's assets. The husband is an equal owner in the child until her sixteenth birthday, at which time the child will be her own legal owner. He did not give his permission for this sale, so I must consider the bargain invalid."

A flurry of conversation exploded all around once more! This time the major topic was partially derisive, and consisted of the fae complaining. Apparently, Nadezdha gathered, Rashemi law had not always been so generous unto male caregivers, and therefore these changes meant Rashemi law was inordinately fickle and untrustworthy.

Still, after what seemed to take fifteen minutes of arguing, the Summer and Winter court representatives settled down and seemed to accept that this component of Rashemi law would be respected.

However, the dwarf-thing had thought up an alternative point to raise:

"Then it is the case that I have been cheated!" he said. "And by the wording of the agreement, this woman owes me two souls. She has a debt against me, which I am unable to collect from her. Then it is her next of kin- her husband, her daughter, and her sisters and brothers, who owe it to me to make up this debt!"

Sheilaktar considered this. The Summer Court guards murmured to one another about setting up an arrangement by which the father and daughter could potentially attempt to earn souls elsewhere to pay the dwarf with. At long last, the Wychlaran turned to the Rashemi woman.

"Doest thou understand I cannot help thee?" she asked the woman. "That no one can help thee?"

The woman bowed her head.

"Doest thou wish to help thy family?"

She looked up, miserably, and nodded.

"Very good. Then remove thy shoes," the witch instructed.

Startled, the woman did so. She stood barefoot, and lifted up the shoes.

Sheilaktar took the shoes from her, and inspected them for any defects. Finding none, she turned back to the Winter Court, strode forward, and offered them to the dwarf-creature. "I believe you will find that she has a good substitute for the merchandise she was unauthorized to provide. Here you can see she yet has two _soles_ to offer, both in excellent condition. Would thou like them attached to or removed from their bodies?"

The dwarf contemplated the shoes for a moment and then took them. "Attached," he said. "They are best that way."

"Very good, I do not think they will protest this arrangement," Sheilaktar agreed, standing up straight. "Nor either will the human herself. Is there any party who does not yet consider the matter settled?"

Everyone around her was either silent, or else shook their head in complete satisfaction with how things had gone.

"Then I think this discussion can be concluded," Sheilaktar announced. "If the Winter Court has no further issues to raise, I should like to convene with those Summertime individuals present about the manner by which the man and his daughter might be returned to their home."

She favored the Rashemi woman with a brief look of pity. The woman met her gaze, and then took one last look behind her at her husband and child. Then darkness enveloped the southern half of the meeting place temporarily and, when it cleared, the Winter Court and the woman they had bartered for were gone.

Nadezdha stood there, reeling, and attempted to determine what upset her more: that a woman had just sold her soul for a few decades of beauty and wealth, or that shoes and people were of interchangeable monetary value because a part of their anatomies _rhymed_.


	84. Reflection

Nadezdha was quiet as Sheilaktar led them back out from the meeting place of standing stones, and brought them to a garden of small crabapple trees. The witch brushed some snow from an old, blue, lithic bench, and then she sat down and gestured for the younger girl to join her. Nadezdha did so.

"What will happen to that woman?" the Mulani girl wondered. Her humminghorses seemed subdued, and she patted them to reassure them.

"I cannot be sure," Sheilaktar admitted as she cobbled together a lunch for both of them out of their provisions. "She may stumble upon some chance to free herself, but she will likely remain a pet forever. Doubtless I need not remind one of your background that souls are not a good currency to trade away." She passed Nadezdha a bowl of preserved fruit and jerky. "Thou looks upset."

Nadezdha tried to put her discontent into words. "Everything seemed so arbitrary. Half the time I could not tell who was on whose side, even. Was that man really protected only by the casual wording of his marriage vows?"

"No. He was protected by my ability to _argue_ the relevance of the casual wording of his marriage vows. Dealing with Fae is never a matter of absolutes, child. It calls for a fusion of wit, wisdom, upbringing, and force of personality. The Feywild is _not_ like Thay. Now, eat, lest thou accidentally be tempted by some morsel here. "

Nadezdha chewed ponderously over a piece of jerky. "They... they seem to respect you. Do they treat all Wychlaran like this?"

Sheilaktar pursed her lips and shook her head. "Only a few. You noticed that both courts greeted me much the same, no?" The younger girl nodded. "That is significant, as either court could block me from coming if they distrusted me. I am invited to weigh in on such trials because _both_ courts believe me to be fair. But that trust comes with its price..."

"The price that you must _actually _be 'fair' to both courts?" the fosterling supposed with a compassionate wince.

Sheilaktar sat back. "Nature is ruthless, and so too can be the spirits of Rasheman," she explained with a loose gesture off at the world. "Witches grow strong to settle disputes with angry spirits, and emerge victorious on behalf of their peoples. This is what it means to be a medium or custodian.

"But to arbitrate between dark and light is something slightly different: it is to give equal weight in a primal system where both sides must be in balance for there to be peace and prosperity. The Hathran_ rely_ on me to be one of the few people who can treat with the darkest parts of nature... But at times they despise me for it."

"I presume that must be because you've seen cases more heartbreaking than this one," the child guessed astutely. "Ones where a truly innocent or altruistic person got into trouble..."

Sheilaktar looked down at her hands thoughtfully, her face darkened by its thoughtful frown. "Most people who come afoul of fae deserve their fates. Darkness preys on darkness. But some people... some do not. And, in a few rare and particularly troubling instances, there has been nothing I could do to help."

Nadezdha thought about the coldness in how Sheilaktar had never asked the accused woman's name; and yet the angry, matronly heat with which she'd ended up referring to the woman as 'child.' Then she reached over and placed her hand on her mentor's arm.

"I... I could tell." Her witch looked at her with puzzlement, so she extrapolated: "That you cared. That you felt frustrated and dismissive, but simultaneously cared. That there was more conflict to what you felt than what you showed."

Sheilaktar was quiet for a long moment. Then she shook her head. "Do not put so much thought into it," she patted Nadezdha's arm. "I did as was my responsibility."

The girl-in-disguise watched Sheilaktar's expression for a moment and scooted closer to lean into her Hathran. Sheilakater placed an arm wordlessly about her shoulders and gave her an affectionate squeeze. Nadezdha offered her some of the food. Sheilaktar took it with a begrudging sigh. Some humminghorses asked for food also, so Nadezdha obliged them.

"Tell me why you are upset," the ex-Thayvian girl solicited from her witch.

"Excuse me? When did you become my confident?" the older woman grumbled.

"I don't know. I learn everything from watching you, senneta," was the Mulani child's tongue-in-cheek response.


	85. Merydei

Sheilaktar began: "There was a woman of great life and beauty named Puyrinei of Deepwell."

"She was a fellow Hathran, and a devotee of Bhalla the Mother Goddess. She was well loved almost universally, and she had just given birth to a daughter, Merydei, not six months previously. Trouble came to our borders, as it often does; but while we were off fighting in blood-soaked fields of war, a band of durthan witches assaulted her homestead. They killed her husband and kidnapped Merydei.

"When we returned, we found the destruction and searched for the child. We searched and searched and searched; but by the time we found out what the durthan's intentions had been, it was already too late.

"Merydei had been taken to a deep part of the Feywild and given up as an offering unto an unseelie creature who dwelled there.

"The durthan yet needed to be rooted out and dealt with, and they had received a great boon for the 'service' they had rendered unto the fae. But I was not part of that chase or it's aftermath. Instead, I descended into the Feywild to treat with this 'creature' they had met, and to determine what had happened to Merydei.

"The first thing I must say about this creature was that the other fae call her a 'Face Eater' and a temptress. She is old, and primordial; a spiraling black millipede stretching for miles and miles whose bulk converges on a feminine upright shape at her front, and whose face changes between a series of four or five of her favorite faces to showcase her favorite expressions as she talks. Finding her alone was no easy thing to do; talking to her could have cost me more than my life.

"But what I found astonished me and rejuvenated my spirit. Rather than being consumed or destroyed, Merydei had been _adopted_. Her new 'mother,' the Face Eater, had wanted for a child to call her own. I was allowed to see the little girl, and to ascertain that she had not been harmed. Then I made it my mission to try and retrieve her for her real mother.

"I bargained, and bargained, and bargained; but, no matter what I offered, Merydei's new mother would not relinquish her. The fae perspective which prevailed on the issue was that Puyrinei had 'clearly neglected' the child by allowing her to be lost in the first place, which of course you and I know is pure nonsense. I tried to appeal to the Face Eater's maternal feelings, but I recieved the sense she had been tricked or betrayed into losing a child in the past. Perhaps another changeling or... perhaps a child of her own. She was surprisingly open to talking about the situation, but she would not even once entertain the notion of giving Merydei up.

"I realized I was stretching my luck and the Face Eater's patience, and the time was growing late. I could not abandon Merydei to an uncertain fate, so I changed my tactic. I tried to make sure that the baby would be safe while I was gone, and so I bargained that the Face Eater would agree to rules governing her rearing. I made sure to keep Merydei off the dinner table first and foremost. Then, just in case we were unsuccessful in entering into other negotiations, I ensured that she would be free to leave the Feywild when she hit adulthood and brought to meet the Wychlaran so that she could decide what she thought of the human world.

"I left _exhausted_ but knowing that a little girl would at least _live_, and that her soul was not in jeopardy.

"Puyrinei... was not impressed with my results. She swore for all the days of eternity that she would never forgive me for what I had done, and what I had failed to do.

"I believe she wanted me to call down all my righteous fury and storm the Feywild to re-abduct the child. I believe she wanted me to be filled with her love, her hate, her... irrationality. I tried to argue that I myself had been partially reared by an unseelie fae, but that did not win me any victories.

"It is normal for a woman in her position to be angry, no? For a mother to be willing to do anything for the sake of their child? I would not know. I have never had children or indeed even siblings. I tried to explain the situation as best I could, and suggest that we speak to the Face Eater after a year had passed to see if she had grown bored with motherhood. But Puyrinei would not listen to me. Neither would many of my sisters.

"Yhelbruna, who is much wiser and more powerful than me, took my side. She said that I had done more for Merydei than anyone could have hoped I'd be capable of, and more than she herself would have been able to do in my shoes. Her words dimmed the fire, but I did not truly believe them, and neither did Puyrinei or many of my sisters.

"One year later, I went to see Merydei and I found her to be well-cared for. She was a fat and happy little baby, and was spoiled rotten with toys. I again treated with her mother, but, as I suspected after seeing her condition, the Face Eater had not grown bored of rearing her.

"I returned and told Puyrinei of the situation, but she was not as optimistic as I about the news. She attacked me. I was able to fight her into submission without seriously harming her, but the tensions only worsened after that.

"On the second year, I again went to see Merydei and again found her in good condition. When I returned, I knew better than to speak to anyone but Yhelbruna about my findings. What I did not know then- what none of us would learn until days later- was that on the anniversary of her daughter's disappearance, Puyrinei had thrown herself off a cliff face where the highlands meets the sea, and had dashed herself to pieces against the rocks and surf. By the time her remains were found, there was little more than bits of clothing, bones, and hair to recover."


	86. Relative Wisdom and Charisma

"She _killed_ herself?" Nadezdha asked after a long moment. "Puyrinei?" Sheilaktar looked slowly down at the 'girl.' By the puzzled expression on Nadezdha's face, it seemed she found this story to be particularly strange.

Sheilaktar tilted her head to the side. "Out of grief. Thou has never heard a story of suicide?"

"Ah," the younger girl hesitated, brushing crumbs from her cloak. "You would be hard-pressed to find many Thayvians flinging themselves off tall things for the sake of _other_ people's woes. In Thay, people speak of suicide as cowardly or weak, not as tragic. "

The necromancer scowled. "She was mourning the loss of her _child_."

Nadezdha looked up at her with raised brows and thin-pressed lips. "When I turned five, do you know what the odds were that I would make it to sixteen years of age? Less than twenty percent. Our parents tell us to come back either as mages or ashes. Of the graduates in my peer group, another fifth will be dead before they hit their second decade of life. Those who remain by that point are ruthless survivors. The best of the best."

His Hathran seemed to find these numbers so incredulous that she couldn't tell whether to take them at face value or not. "I-I am certain thy parents would have mourned thy death in some fashion!" she scolded as if not believing him.

"Yes. I think so," Nadezdha agreed. "But privately. I had an older brother once. And a few younger siblings closer to myself in age. Their demises were greeted with... _disappointment_. Still, the more I think about it, and the more I reflect on how long everyone stayed in a sour temper, I am certain my parents grieved privately."

Belief in the ex-Thayvian's testimony sank slowly, visibly onto Sheilaktar's countenance: a sort of startled, dismayed, and compassionate horror.

"I failed my first graduate exam," Nadezdha added thoughtfully and with a slight blush about the neck and cheeks, "which many young mages do, if they take it as early as they are able. Leonlai brought me straight to the safety of the family manor to ensure I had time to recover. My parents greeted me in a wrath unlike anything I'd ever seen. I was dead on my feet, ashamed, and woozy from blood loss; and had I been left to face them on my own, I surely would have collapsed on the doorstep in front of them.

"But my sister ignored them, marched me wordlessly past, and put me to bed. Everyone else had calmed down by the next day, but I was made to understand in no uncertain terms that I would not fail again the following year, or else I would not be welcomed home. I was simultaneously reprimanded for not delaying the original test a year if I believed I was unready. Now I see that if I read between the lines of those mixed messages, I _must_ presume that they were concerned for me. But... these are not things we openly told one another in Thay."

Sheilaktar watched her face, and then looked off at nothing as she churned off her words. "This is the same sister thou hast spoken of before," she noted. "The one who tutored thee. And who shot thee through with some kind of water-and-lightning spell to hit a target behind thee."

Nadezdha nodded, and did not want to talk further about that.

Silence stretched between them.

"I'm sorry," the Mulani girl said at last. "I didn't mean to belittle Puyrinei or what she felt. I'm still learning. There is a lot I have never heard before, and the culture I grew up in was... retentive about many things." She looked up at Sheilaktar. "Whatever happened to Merydei?"

"She is still a child," Sheilaktar answered quietly. "She grows healthier and happier every year. I bring her gifts from the outside world sometimes. But now I do not mention seeing her to my sisters."

"Really? And never?"

"Thou said how thou art still learning; Well, that holds true for thou and I both. What I have learned is that my sisters equate Merydei's name with anger, grief, and heartbreak. They cannot see the lights in the dark places, or the miracles at work in the heart of an old Face Eater. All they see is the dissolved body of their dead friend, and an empty cradle. I think this is the wrong perspective, but I have no ability to change their minds." She reached over to continue eating with Nadezdha. "It seems I understand fae better than I do my fellow humans."


	87. Blue is the old Pink

No sooner had Nadezdha and Sheilaktar finished eaten their lunch than a group of fae came into the garden where the two of them were sitting.

"There they are!" one of them called, and then the group swooped up to greet the rising Hathran. "You hurried off so swiftly, Dusky Dragon!" a short, blue, spritely creature greeted. "We didn't get to say hello, or even see the girl you'd brought! Do you not like us?"

"Ah, of course not," Sheilaktar gestured to Naezdha, who stood up quickly and dusted off her skirts of snow. "My friends and acquaintances, this is Nadezdha, my companion."

"She's _adorable_!" the blue creature praised eagerly, stepping forward. "How old is she? Can I touch her?"

Nadezdha recoiled in surprise and then quickly side-stepped to stand partially behind her mentor. Three humminghorses immediately flew prohibitively at the spite, who backed up with a giggle.

Sheilaktar gave a startled, deep laugh at this, glancing back to catch sight of the disguised boy. "I'm afraid she is a little shy," the witch admitted. "This is the first time I have ever brought her into the Feywild.

"You should bring her to the dances," one of the Eladrin said with a sharp-toothed smile, and another offered: "We could join you on a tour of the city."

The blue sprite burst into a globe of water which dove past the startled hummnghorses and reformed behind Nadezdha. "Yoohoo!" she cooed delightedly, tugging on Nadezdha's sleeve. The Mulani girl nearly leaped out of her skin, scampering back around to Sheilaktar's opposite side almost reflexively. The sprite thing- was she a 'nixie?'- pursued!

"Let me say hi! Let me say hi! Ehehe!" Humminghorses chased ineffectually after her. A few small faeries decided this all looked like much fun, and showed up to chase after the humminghorses.

Sheilaktar watched as this circling of her person occurred twice, then three times. Several of the eladrin covered their faces and shook heir heads, grinning. Then, at last, Hom-_Nadezdha_ surrendered and permitted the inevitable. The nixie- for that's indeed what the blue sprite was- pounced upon the disguised boy and squeezed him in a hug.

"Yay! I got to touch her! That wasn't so bad, right?" the nixie asked as she nuzzled enthusiastically into his/her fortunately squishy bosom.

Naezdha, red-faced, didn't manage much other than a squeak of 'agreement.'

"She smells good!" said the nixie moments before transforming into a water ball, reforming behind Nadezdha. Nadezdha glanced back just as the Nixie shoved 'her' into the other fae. One of the Eladrin caught 'her' to keep her from falling flat on her face. He set her securely back on her feet, but by then faeries were already all over Nadezdha's hair and braiding it. The eladrin looked torn between the extremes of shooing off all these nonsensical critters or else diving Nadezdha themselves and joining in on the hair-touching.

"Her outfit is _splendid_," one of the Eladrin finally blurted, and that was all it took for them all to begin touching and talking to her at once.

"Did you make it?"  
"Can you fly? No? Well it's like jumping through a sideways hole over a normal hole, only not as scary. And no splat!"  
"Do you pick your own fabrics?"  
"What's your favorite flavor of nectar?"  
"Where did the color of your hair go?"  
"You should see my mate's embroidery!"  
"Do you think blue or pink is better?"  
"How about a starlight waterfall?"  
"How many dingleboppers do you have?"  
"Do you think the word 'cloud' tastes more like grapefruit, or like aquamarine?"  
"Can you do the ceiling waltz?"  
"Why is your nose so big? Do you want me to make it smaller?"  
"What color are your socks?"  
"What's your favorite kind of fish?"  
"What about your left sock? Why would you wear two socks of the same color? That's silly."

Sheilaktar heaved a great sigh as if just barely tolerating this. Hom-_Nadezdha_ looked up at her with big eyes. The witch winked back down at the disguised boy. "Don't worry. They are only ever this enthusiastic about _new_ things."

Nadezdha, who now had at least a dozen people asking her questions and groping everything from her hair to her skirts, gulped visibly.


	88. Home

[Author's Note] Again I'd like to warn my readers that this story will have a Part II.

* * *

At least five hundred distinct fae persons were embroiled in a bitter argument over whether or not Nadezdha's favorite flowers were Dewpetals or Criolorai. Nadezdha had collected quite a following on her tour through the fae capitol. The procession had halted, however, with one fellow's blithe assertion that the red Criolorai would of course be the girl's favorite, for they were the most beautiful of all the water blossoms. This proclaimation, of course, was immediately challenged by proponents of the Dewpetal's superiority as a watery beauty.

Now names were being thrown and glamoring magic was turning everyone's everything into everything else imaginable. Someone's hair had just flown off on them in a torrent of monarch butterflies, and a few persons had been struck upside the head by pixies-turned-into-apple-pies.

Nadezdha herself, of course, was entirely superfluous to the continued health of the debate; so Sheilaktar casually strolled up beside her fosterling, took the girl/boy by the hand, and led Nadezdha off at a leisurely pace. They departed the area just as fireworks began to light up the sky behind them. Sheilaktar said nothing immediately, giving the child some time to digest their eventful afternoon (and it _had_ only been an afternoon; Sheilaktar had carefully timed things to keep time itself from running off on them).

Nadezdha stared ahead uncomprehendingly, her arms held curled up defensively against her chest, and her clothes and hair in a state of dishevelment. Her hair had been magicked into thick, long, bouncy curls, which hung down to her shoulders.

"Wh-..." the Mulani b-_girl _whimpered slowly. "Wh-what just... just... _happened_?"

"Thou received an excellent grade as to the quality of thy tailoring," Sheilaktar interpreted the events for Nadezdha's benefit. "And we are both very lucky thou were so terrified by the gratuitous invasions of thy personal space that no imaginable surfeit of half-naked women cavorting about and lavishing thee in hugs proved able to arouse thee. Surely a surprise of _that_ nature would have compelled them to strip thee clean that they might better get to the truth of things."

"Wh-who was half naked?" her fosterling mumbled dazedly.

"Precisely. If it makes thou feel any better, they do this to almost everyone they meet. Ah! Look, it seems thou has made a few true friends after all."

Nadezdha looked rapidly about with a preemptive cringe. Then she saw the humminghorses were catching up to her, all three of them. Her shoulders slumped, and she reached out to them. All three shot straight into her arms and produced fizzled-out, exhausted little raspy noises. Nadezdha gave a strangled sigh as she pet them, and soon they had fallen asleep floating in place, with their tails curled about the edges of her fingers to keep them from blowing away.

Sheilaktar gestured for her to continue walking, and they made good time across the expanse of the city.

"Are we leaving?" the young 'girl' wondered, confused, when at last they came to the great stairway going out. "We couldn't have been here more than an hour..."

The older woman chuckled knowingly. "It is unwise to linger too long in the Feywild before one has acquired a good sense of it's rules and pacing," Sheilaktar explained. "Especially so deep and among so many faeries. This was a good early experience for thee... But, for now, it is time to go, and to reflect."

Some sense came back into the Mulani girl at that. _We've been here awhile, then. _She looked back out across the large and rolling city, with all its mysteries, and with an aura so overpowering that it could not yet be safely explored. _Not yet? _She looked back to her mentor, who was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. "S... senneta... Why did you bring me here?" she asked in puzzlement.

The necromancer regarded her for a moment, and her expression seemed older and more somber than it had moments previously. "To see how thou would handle it," she said. "And to test thy needlework."

"Will... will we be coming back? I mean, with me. Will you be bringing me here again?"

"We shall see," the necromancer told her. "Come. The Feywild's poem is telling us to rest: thy humminghorses should be returned to their skylillies, and thou ought to be returned to thy bed at home in our cottage."

The cottage. The goats. _Home_.

Nadezdha nodded and followed trustingly after her Hathran.


	89. A Day for Rest

A delicate but warm winter sunlight trickled through the windows of the cottage; A rare crack of sky through Rasheman's perpetually overcast winters. Homen blinked slowly in the radiance. Then his brows furrowed, and he rolled over to look across the cottage.

_Wait. What time is it? _By the light, it looked to be at least midday! He had chores to do: breakfast to cook, tea to make, goats to feed, milk, and shovel for, butter to churn, and a dress to make-!

He threw aside his blankets and sat up in disorientation. Then he recalled the Feywild. Vaguely, he remembered stumbling into the cottage at some absurd hour of the night and collapsing fully clothed into bed. He'd probably been unconscious within seconds of hitting the blankets.

Yes, as he patted at himself he found that he was still in the dress with all its associated petticoats and other undergarments. Sheilaktar, it seemed, had both taken off his shoes and reached under to open the corset laces while he'd slept so that he'd be comfortable.

Homen fell back against his blankets with a groan and lifted his hands to rub his face.

The _Feywild._

She'd taken him to the _Feywild_!

Gods above! How could one have explained such a place without sounding drugged? The whole experience had been dreamlike in feel, but too nuanced to dismiss. There had been ents to dwarf the greatest towers in Eltabbar! Swamp monsters, and Kelpies, trees the size of mountains, humminghorses-

_-humminghorses! _

He laughed into his palms at the absurdity. But such humminghorses existed! They _did_, and he had bid them a sleepy farewell the evening before as he'd sent them home (which hadn't been the bottom of a kettle of marsh leaf).

Momentarily, he entertained a mental image of trying to explain such creatures to a Red Wizard, much as Sheilaktar had explained them to him. _'Oh, those? They are humminghorses, naturally. They are nomadic, as you might well imagine, following after clouds of skylilies to keep them well pollinated. Incidentally, have you ever wondered why some locations of the world have reported the sky to rain frogs occasionally? Well there you have it: Skylilies, of course.' _

To say nothing of the trial he'd watched, which surely would have driven any of his academy peers to madness had they been forced to witness it.

Homen lowered his hands from his face, and looked thoughtfully over at the cottage door. There was no sign of Sheilaktar, but he supposed she'd meant for him to sleep himself out. The corner of his mouth lifted, and a soft, quiet sensation came over him:

_Home._

He looked around at the cottage: at the gourds, herbs, and nets suspended in the rafters; the mantlepiece, kettles, pots and fireplace; the bottles, spices, jars, dried preserves, racks, shelves, bookcases, and trunks; at his work desk, coat, abax, and sewing supplies; and the signs of another person, a very important person, who had shared this space with him.

_This is home. I never have to leave. _He felt a smile at his mouth. And, strangely, a bit of pressure at his eyes. Fighting back the curious but utterly unexplainable instinct to shed a tear or two, Homen slowly sat back up and stretched himself off. Then he looked down at himself.

_Well, as spectacularly beautiful as I might be in this- and I _am_\- I think that's entirely enough dress-wearing for right now._

Besides, he wanted to examine all his stitches to make sure they'd held out through their maiden voyage, and that would be difficult to do while he was wearing it.

Homen dressed down out of his various layers, and stepped back into his older, drabber clothes and the coat which Sheilaktar had given him. His Hathran had left out a covered breakfast for him, and he hate heartily.

Then he poured himself some water and washed lingering black and red pigments from his face. There he found to his chagrin that his hair was still a spiral of thick and bouncy curls. He stared puzzled at his reflection for a moment, wondering if the thickness was a glamor or a genuine alteration. Then he located a comb and brought it through his hair. The curls unraveled as swiftly as if they had been made of air.

"Alas, Nadezdha," he lamented with a smirk as he combed out all of the curls. "You did not actually win thicker hair. _This_ time." Then he frowned and lowered the comb as he noticed something was missing from the cottage.

Where was the vellum he'd been working on? It and its rack were both missing.


	90. Finding Meaning

Homen found Sheilaktar just outside the cottage. She'd cleared off one of her benches and seemed to be sitting in contemplation of an object farther afield.

As Homen turned his gaze to follow her own, he found his vellum had been removed from the rack and laid out on a piece of mahogany wood. It looked to be roughly centered between the three hibernating apple trees, and had been gently sprinkled with handfuls of pine needles and wintertime flowers from a bholua shrub. There were several work tools upon the altar, as well as a small pot of ink and a quill.

As exciting as the sight of writing implements was, he was significantly more interested in his witch that morning. "Senneta?" he called, slowly picking his way past snowdrifts and excited goats to reach her side. Nana was particularly happy to say hello, and Homen scratched her ears and horns.

"Good afternoon, Homen. Did thou rest well?"

He nodded, even as a yawn snuck up on him. "You took me to the _Feywild_," he laughed. "I didn't imagine... when you said we'd be taking a _trip_...!"

Sheilaktar smirked knowingly. "Did thou enjoy it?"

"_Yes_. Gods- _goddess_\- yes," he laughed, still feeling slightly giddy. "That was the strangest day I've ever had, and- and wonderful. Was it just one day?"

She nodded. "It's rare to hear thee laugh."

Homen blinked, and lifted his head introspectively to decide if this was the case. It was. More than she even realized. "It was- it was _fun_. Traumatic at a few moments, yes, but," he grinned down at her, "fun. Did my dress really work?"

"They were none the wiser," she confirmed.

"Thank you," he sighed contentedly and moved to sit beside her. "For that. For bringing me there. Even though I'm..." He looked over the garden, and then droped his gaze happily down to his own hands. "There was so much of it, just in the air, _everywhere_, in everyone and everything."

"So much of what?" she asked, her eyes narrowing.

"Magic," the boy chuckled fondly. "_Life._ I didn't deserve for you to bring me there even once, and I don't understand why you did." He lifted his hands, rubbing his face and shaking his head, excited. "I didn't deserve to help you with crafting the pendant, either. Each meant so much to me. Even if they were just once."

"Thou thinkst thou could be happy with but a taste of such things?" she asked. "When I found thee, thy traumas had eclipsed thy natural senses. Now thou hast been reminded of thyself again. Doest thou believest thou could go fifty or sixty years from here on out, always knowing of the deep places of the world, without craving another glimpse of them? Always surrounded by magic, and yet never partaking?"

Homen lifted his head and looked to her knowingly. "You are very unsubtly testing to see if you've whetted a Thay-child's appetite for power?" he asked with a smirk and a raised brow.

Her expression was impenetrable.

His smile faded. A moment passed in silence between them, and when he spoke his voice was low and solemn: "Then take from me my memories of such things, and let me shovel goat poop in blissful ignorance until the day I die. Take as much of it as you please. The last two days? I might be happier if thou took the memory of my youth, too."

His Hathran sneered as if disgusted and straightened up to her fully seated height. "Thou says such things to me?" she growled angrily. "When _I_ made the decision to share both experiences with thee? Rather than ask after my motives, though jumps first to presuming I'd either been cruelly _teasing _thee or else that I'd be willing to claw out my 'mistakes' from thy head?"

He jerked back an inch in startlement. "What-? I only meant-!" He bit his lower lip and looked away, trying to think before he blurted out anything else she'd find offensive. "Senneta...!"

"Thou only meant to reinforce thy commitment to remaining, but thou speaks of thyself as a slave when thou art _my companion_," the witch informed him sternly. "I shall not be _lobotomizing_ thee, as it halfway seemed thou were suggesting. I am _trying_ to find something thou might be capable of assisting me with; some trained skill which will give thy life _meaning_ and allow thee to grow into the smiling, sharp-witted knave thou art clearly naturally equipped to become!"

Homen looked back up at her, eyes rounding out, cow-like, at the substance of her rebuke.

Sheilaktar glared at him crossly.

"You... you would have me train as an artisan of masterwork crafts for enchanting purchases or... or a sort of messenger or diplomat with regards to fae?"

"Hnh! The boy is using his brain again, Nudisdne," Sheilaktar muttered to herself contemptuously.

Homen reached hesitantly back to her, perhaps seeking an embrace; but Sheilaktar waved his arms off and then gestured over at where the vellum had been placed between the leafless apple trees.

"That is a makeshift altar open unto the goddess," she explained testily. "Go to it, sit quietly, and ask her for inspiration."

Homen withdrew an inch and looked puzzled at the altar. He stood hesitantly. "In... inspiration?"

"Yes. Until I have finished being vexed with thee. Go and soak in her thrice-be-damned inspiration. Ask Khelliara what thy spirit animal is while thou is at it."


	91. Sincerely, Homen N Odesseiron

Homen tucked his trouser legs carefully into his boots, and then knelt down awkwardly down before the 'altar' which Sheilaktar had directed him to. He heard her get up behind him and enter into the cottage.

The mahogany altar itself was a deep, red brown; the very same color as his Hathran's hair. Sheilaktar had draped the pale vellum across the surface in a series of loose folds. The skin was now cream colored, quite large, and paper thin after so many weeks of scraping and pulling. It's edges had been weighted down by a circle of deliberately placed tools, including the inkwell and quill.

"I..." he chafed his arms, feeling out of place. Then he looked up at where the naked apple branches snaked and intertwined overhead. "I'm afraid I've never received an official primer on this religion," he admitted quietly to the air. Then, concerned his words might sound arrogant or flippant, he hurried to explain: "I-I mean my family made appropriate offerings to all the gods whose hands they believed were needed in Surthay. The household included a priest of Bane and another of Sobek, who maintained shrines on the grounds. And Leonlai sometimes gave votives to Sekhmet when she was angry or frustrated."

Alas, but speaking to the matron goddess of Rasheman was probably nothing at all like offering human sacrifices to halt an epidemic of stygian crocodile attacks on The River Thay.

Homen looked back down at the altar and thought of the last Rashemi god he'd tried speaking to: the Spirit Bear, Okku. A bolt of psychosomatic pain struck him through the abdomen, and he found himself breathing in shakily as his palms perspired and his heart-rate soared. Images, half-formed, flashed snake-like through his memory; visions of things that couldn't have been, of glowing lights and razor-sharp; whales, and leviathans; blue starlight fog, and and a feeling of deep and penetrating cold.

_The touch of the Unseen clasps thin about your shoulders as a hopeful and unacknowledged mantle, and clings to the sensitivity of your fingertips._

"What manner of thing," Sheilaktar's voice made him jump as it pierced his trembling haze," has crawled into thy fool imagination this time, boy?"

Homen shook his head to try and clear it of old thoughts. "I... I don't how how to pray to the goddess," he explained hurriedly. "Won't I offend her?"

"Why? Because thou were a Red Wizard?"

"Nythra took me to see Okku at Midwinter."

Sheilaktar paused mid-motion as she knelt before the altar with a few objects in hand. "I've had my temper compared to Okku's," she recalled as if sharing in his past dread.

Homen broke out laughing in surprise and quickly covered his mouth. "Nythra had to track me down to whatever hole I'd hidden in, and I needed a chance of trousers afterwards."

"Tch. Nythra," the witch sighed heavily. She settled down a basin, and few bottles along the the altar, and draped an unusual piece of leather out over the vellum. "All the friendliness in the world, but none of the wisdom."

For a moment, Homen couldn't determine why the leather looked so strange. Then he realized he was looking at a piece of lindwurm skin with the upper layers and scales removed. Startled, he looked up at Sheilaktar. Anything involving dragon components was bound to be quite significant! Was this to be another magical craft, then?

"Thy Thayvian accent will not offend the goddess, child," was what the Hathran said as she sat back to inspect the altar at large. "Save thy fear and tactically worded entreaties for dealing with less benevolent spirits. If thou wishes to speak to her, she will listen."

"How?"

"How? There is no _method_. Only speak to her. If thou wishes to train thyself to reverence, then give thanks thrice as frequently as thou asks for help. Give thanks to Bhalla, goddess of hearth and plenty, for the people and things thou has in thy life. Give thanks to Khelliara, the huntress, for thine opportunities to grow and achieve. Give thanks to the Hidden One for new wisdom and for the unseen forces in thy life."

Homen writhed nervously.

"By all the spirits of the earth, water, and sky; thou art a ridiculous child, Homen. Brazen as a strutting rooster one second, and as nervous as a feral cat the next! Here, listen: _Goddess, Earthmother, Bhalla, thank you for this foolish imp which has come to share in my household._ There! Did that sound prim and organized to thee? If thou wishes her to hear something, then thou has but to _speak_."

The Mulani boy looked back at the altar with furrowed brows. "The night..." he began slowly, "The night I crossed Lake Mulsantir, I could see my breath in the air. It was foggy, and dark. I hadn't eaten in over a day. I hadn't properly slept. I had open lesions and scalds across half my body. I didn't bother shedding any clothing, even knowing the robes would weigh me down. I hoped, as I dropped into the water, that the cold would knock me unconscious as it went over my head. But it didn't. I couldn't feel anything, and breaching the surface again was simple.

"I think I can count the times I have been swimming on one hand. But as I grasped the edge of the boat, the old crone who'd taken me out so far pointed me off into the gloom. And I turned, and I swam into the fog as she'd directed.

"It felt like I slept. There were things I couldn't see, but I knew they were there, gigantic, in the water under me. I can remember glimpses of them- frightening glimpses- which I could not have possibly seen in the dark. And I remember there was blue starlight illuminating the way, which was impossible because it was foggy. The night kept going, and going, and going; and the stars grew no closer.

"And then, after a forever, I came groggily awake to the feeling of rocks and dirt. And I clambered out of the water like I was made of sticks and lead, and I wrung out the robes. The trees were enormous, and between them was dark, and I walked and walked and walked, and I don't remember what the ground felt like under my feet, or how long I was out there, or how far I traveled. I don't remember anything but waking up in this cottage; and I wonder if the incident with the stag was not the first time I'd slipped into the Feywild.

"I do not know which sub-deity, precisely, I should thank for the fact that I am here today. But thank you, goddess, for letting me pass the lake. For guiding me to where Sheilaktar found me. For everything that happened then and since. I know in retrospect I did not make that journey under my own power. Thank you."

Silence stretched across the garden as Homen tried to determine if he ought to say more. Then he looked nervously up at Sheilaktar, who had placed her hands upon her hips and was fixing him a puzzled or perhaps even slightly estranged expression. "How was that?" he worried.

"Well it carried thy usual flare for dramatic, expository monologuing," the witch harrumphed, "which I shall credit to thy terrible upbringing. But aside from that I'm afraid I can muster no additional criticisms."

* * *

[Author's note] I largely ignore the stunted, boring, monodimensional 'Faerun-ified' writeups of Mulhorandi (Egyptian) gods.


	92. Bookmaking

Author's Note: Surthay will be ending soon, and I will publish Surthay II. I posted a lot of chapters recently (79 and up) , so I hope you've been able to find all of them!

* * *

Homen was not sure whether to pout or scowl. Monologuing indeed! Then he raised his brow in bewilderment, for the thoughtful gleam in Sheilaktar's hazel eyes seemed curiously intense. His pout faded. She sighed mutely, shook her head, and turned her attention back to the altar and to whatever craft it was she had set out for them to work on that day.

The witch was silent then as the seconds stretched by, her gaze locked on the vellum and dragon skin as if in contemplation of what she intended to do with them. He wondered if she were praying silently, or if she were only thinking to herself. A smile twitched at her mouth, a confident smile.

She reached up for the quill and took it from its position. She twirled it between her fingers, and a few murmured words in Draconic and Sylvan left her mouth. Then she lifted up the quill, and jabbed the tip into her pointer finger, drawing blood. Homen twitched slightly, but watched curiously as she wetted the nib in red liquor. With soft words of magic, and an almost casual flick of her off hand, Sheilaktar leaned over and scribed a single, neat, red character upon the vellum.

The blood soaked into the paper's surface. Then it began to disappear from view, as if being sucked deeper into the folds. The roll of vellum trembled once, twice, and then began to grow and stretch, curling about on itself into thick rolls of parchment many times its original size and volume.

"There," she chuckled at his delighted expression, and settled down the quill. "That should be enough."

"It's for paper," he strongly suspected. "Are we making a _book_? With dragonskin? What for? Trade?" he bombarded her.

"_Thou_ could end up engaged in bookmaking this day," she chuckled. "In which case _I_ am going to sit back, supervise, and bark instructions."

"Where would I start?" he peered down at the rolls of vellum.

"The same as I did: simply and quite ignorantly. Take a moment to thank Khelliara and the departed spirit of the stag who gave unto you this vellum. And show respect whenever thou handles Igathor's skin."

He looked at her. "The lindwurm? Why?"

"For as long as thou lives with a necromancer, thou will handle a dragon's flesh with the same morbid reverence thou would give to human skin. The remains of one's own kind deserve no more respect than thou art willing to give onto the remains of a monster. At the very least, show respect for all lindwurms; For Igathor, evil as he was, was no less sapient than thou or I, and no less capable of reason or emotion."

Homen tilted his head slowly. Then he looked down at the patterned but strangely mammalian-looking leather. "Is this a piece of wisdom you've gathered in realizing a hag could make a book out of _you_ one day?" he realized humbly.

She chuckled. "Ah. We live in a land where animal spirits roam the land, boy, but we still hunt for food and leather."

This made a great deal of sense, but it was very different from how Mulani felt about their place in the world, and so Homen took some time to soak in the idea.

Sheilaktar gestured to the altar. "If thou still wishes to do this, then familiarize thyself with each of the tools and components, one at a time, and ask for the Hidden One to work through them. Then place thy hands upon the intended binding, the dragon skin, and ask for her blessing on the project."

He nodded, leaning forward to see everything which she had set out. The tools included an awl, a small hammer, and and a spool of thread. Sheilaktar had also brought out a bottle of dye.

"If thou feels no very obvious rejection from the Hidden One," Sheilaktar continued, "Then thou shall take the basin and that bottle of dye, and stain the binding with a light wash of purple.

"Why purple?" he wondered curiously. The answer he received was matter-of-fact:

"Purple is the color for a young witch's first spellbook."


	93. Specialty

Everything inside clenched: a shot of agonized, euphoric, tortured panic; tingling along the spine and through the gut and neck. Homen looked from the bottle of dye back to Sheilaktar. The muscles in his face felt simultaneously rumpled and numb.

"What?"

She repeated, still wearing that wide, flat-lipped smile that curled slightly at its corners: "Purple is the proper color for an apprentice witch's first spellbook."

"But why do you have _me_ making it?" His mind seemed to be deliberately refusing him an understanding of her intentions.

Sheilaktar's expression coiled in an effortless indicator of mirth. She said something then, and obviously he must heard the sounds, but the meaning failed to reach him as his stomach began churning. He leaned back and was shaking his head in vigorous disbelief. From the very beginning, there had only ever existed one explanation for why Sheilaktar would have tasked him with making vellum, but that explanation had been impossible.

Impossible. And yet, as if to spite him, his lagging brain finally delivered up her words: "A witch must craft her own spellbook."

"I can't." The denial was a breathless, frantic heave.

"Can't what?" Sheilaktar asked with smugly shuttered eyes.

"I cannot be a _witch_," he retreated with a hiss. This hurt. Why would she do this to him? This dug under the skin, to where something was hidden, and _hurt_.

"On what art thou basing thy information? I am a Hathran of the Wychlaran of Rasheman, and I say that thou can." She crossed her arms over her chest.

His posture curled up, serpentine and defensive as his mind clouded over. _I am a Red Wizard of Thay; the eldest son and sole surviving child of Adonai and Ninsar Odesseiron; heir to a Tharchion; scion of a noble house; male; evil. _"Why?" the reptile asked of her, of the woman (Beautiful) who had danced nude at Midwinter in naught but paint, bones, rattles, and reeds. _Why would you trust something like me?_

Sheilaktar leaned forward and into his space. His eyes closed in a reflexive cringe. He felt her breath on his hair as her palms slipped down his arms to find where his fingers had curled into the fabric of his coat and boots. She pulled his hands into the cup of her own, and he looked, wounded, up into her face. "Thou told me Magic was the one thing thou would always truly miss," she reminded him softly, and tingles lit up and down his fingertips and skin as she channeled energy for no reason other than to let him _feel_ it.

"S-ssenn-!" the reptile choked, enraptured and in pain. She stayed in his space, watching his face understandingly; but his insides quaked, twisted and surged over and around one-another, building high into a tight, anxious knot. Magic. He recoiled sharply, pulled his hands free of hers (_Magic!_) and landed with his rump in the snow as he tried to steady the careening planes of his mind.

_No. No, you can't. _The panicked dizziness abated in waves, and he noticed how startled Sheilaktar was. Not just _startled_, even. The skin about her eyes and the bridge of her nose was crinkled in a manner that seemed hurt and confused. She sank back onto her heels at the seconds flew past them, and he stared wordlessly at her as her expression grew guarded and withdrawn.

When she spoke again, her voice was dispassionate and crisp: "What was thy specialty school as a Red Wizard?" she asked.

{E-evoca-}

"If I train thee, thou will never again work Evocation. Thou will learn magic fresh from _nothing, _as if thou were a fledgling, and all thou learns will be in the Wychlaran manner. Thou shall deny thyself all vestiges of knowledge gleaned in a past life by specializing in Enchantment, thy once-forbidden school. Thy first spell will be an Enchantment, or else nothing at all.

He stared up at her, mouth agape.

"Now I see this offer requires more consideration from thee than I had anticipated," Sheilaktar said as she rose stiffly to her feet and dusted snow from her trousers. "So I shall leave thee to thy thoughts." And with that she turned away with harsh motions and returned to the cottage.

Homen twisted about, frantic and needy, to stare after his blasphemous Dragon Goddess. But she had already disappeared inside with a brusque close of the front door. His partially outstretched fingers dropped helplessly back into his lap.

The very last thing Homen Nadezdha Odesseiron wanted to be left alone with was his _thoughts._


	94. Problems Need Solutions, Damn It!

[Author's Note] I've been posting chapters like lightning from 79 up. Hope you find em all! Surthay II will begin with this story ends.

* * *

Sheilaktar stormed into the cottage and grabbed up a piece of horn she'd intended to engrave. She fiddled it for a moment, almost sat, but then cast the work down with an angry grimace and stalked about her possessions.

What had she misinterpreted? What had she failed to take into account? How had she lacked for information?

Her nails scraped over bottles, jars, and gourds, as if the answer could found somewhere in the possessions of the house. The fire was low, so she threw a log on and scowled at the mess it made of the cinders. She took up a fire stirrer, angrily correcting her mistake; growing angrier with each unnecessary gesture. Stupid boy. _Stupid, _nonsensical boy; as flighty as Nythra!

She jabbed the fire stirrer back into place, and glared at his neatly made bed and the articles of girl's clothing he'd stored in a tidy pile beside his pillow.

Had he shown any reluctance towards the crafting? No! Resentment for the Feywild? Hardly; he'd been positively giddy! Ten dozen times he'd thanked her! What was there to misinterpret? Nothing! Precisely! But if not, then what had she missed?

Where had she gone wrong?

She'd offered him exactly what he'd wanted, no? After no small deliberation! She'd prayed, considered, and doubted for nearly a month after reaching her decision! And here, the boy had recoiled from her as if she'd been _threatening_ him instead of offering up the greatest gift she had to give to _anyone_.

Sheilaktar stormed back to her side of the cottage- sides! Less than a year this boy had been in her home, and already he had a _side_ of what she had built with naught but her own hands! Was there no manner in which she had not accepted and adopted him into her world?- and she scraped her nails across her chests and cupboards until she found the chest she was looking for. She overturned the container and opened it, and rummaged through the magical space until she had found the volume she sought.

With a slam she shut the chest closed and shoved it back into position. Then she whirled back towards the center of the hut, that the rear window might shed light down upon her book.

_A Translated Dictionary of Mulhorandi, Chessantan and Untheric to Cormanthan._

"S," she growled, flipping bitterly through the infernal characters with which Thayvian Mulhorandi was transcribed. She found the proper header, and flipped through a few possible vowels. There.

"Senneta," she read aloud in the tongue of Cormanthyr. "One: A means of addressing a low ranking nun. Two: A personal term of respect for a female master of a craft, or a tutor. Three-" Her voice cut off. "Three... The speaker's elder sister."

Her thoughts were quiet for a moment. Then she sank into her chair with the dictionary before her. She rubbed a hand across her face, and then leaned her temple into the palm and fingertips.

_What sense is there to be found in this? _she wondered as she closed her eyes. _Hmph_. Perhaps she might not have earned the boy's affection so much as _inherited_ it from the appellation's previous owner.

_Had_ he felt threatened by her? He'd looked incredibly frightened, to the point where he'd almost not seemed to be in his right mind. Perhaps the wounds were still too fresh; perhaps she ought to have waited a year? Yes, that must have been it: he just needed some time. She should retract the offer to take the pressure off of him, and to give him time to acclimate himself to the idea. Clearly she'd been overeager, but that could be fixed. Unless the shock proved to have long-term consequences?

_He named me Senneta the day I rescued him from the Lindworm. I collapsed, yet he dragged me back to the cottage and staunched the bleeding._

She did not feel good. She felt ill to the point where she glanced towards her medicines. She _felt_ ill, but she was not, and there was no acceptable explanation as to _why_. A headache was mounting, her stomach was nauseated; and all she could do was sit there, grind her teeth, and _seethe _because there was no reason for any of it, and no one to sanely blame.

But had she _damaged_ something? Something between them? If so, how best could she reverse it?


	95. Personality Types

[Author's Note] I've been posting chapters like lightning from 79 up, three of them just today. Hope you find em all! Surthay II will begin with this story ends.

* * *

Homen eased the door slowly open. He saw that Sheilaktar had a pot of stew bubbling over the fireplace. He looked to where his Wychlaran was chopping up some of the final spices and softer vegetable preserves for dinner. Her gestures were rough, fast, and decisive. Watching her, he was almost concerned she'd hack her finger tips off.

With a deep breath, he shuffled inside and closed the door behind him.

"Sheilaktar?"

She gave one more hack, and then lifted the knife up and rested her hand on the handle as the tip balanced upright upon the cutting board. "Yes, Homen?" Her voice was a loud, tolerant sigh.

He winced and dug his fingernails into his palms. "Can I talk to you?"

"Ha. Thou shall find the goddess to be a more talented listener," she told him sharply, before picking up the knife and setting to more finely (and less recklessly) dicing her vegetables. Homen doubted tomatoes needed to be reduced to such small cubes to make them palatable. "I've said my part. If thou wishes to decline, that is wholly thy prerogative."

"I want to _talk_ to you," he repeated, with every ounce of courage he could manage.

"About what, exactly?" she demanded incredulously, as if she truly could not imagine a single topic.

"I need your _help_!" he snapped. Sheilaktar paused and turned her head back to look at him. His eyes widened as the volume of his own voice, but then he gave a quick shake of his head and pointed at her accusingly as he advanced. "_You_ are the one who keeps calling me 'child'! You think your age makes you wise? Strong? In-control? Fine! Then put your considerable mental acumen to the realization that I am _upset_ and that I might need you to _talk_ to me about that because I can't straighten anything out myself!"

The witch shifted her weight uncomfortably, glancing briefly at the stew, and the window. "Why... _why_ art thou upset?" she managed, her voice estranged. "I was _sure_ thou would want this gift."

"More than _anything_," he agreed desperately.

She looked back at him, baffled. "Then what is the problem?"

"I... I..." he searched for the words, lifting his hands with his fingers curled and looking at the floor in frustration. "I _barely_ have any cognizant idea of who I _am_. And you ask me to name a _single problem_?" He looked up at her.

"What does thou mean by that?"

Everything came out in a ranting stream of consciousness to answer her: "I have no idea who I _am_! I haven't been myself since Leonlai killed me!" She straightened in surprise. "Sometimes I hear my own voice about with racist, self-flagellating things in the back of my skull, and I feel like I'm- like I'm- _possessed_ by something! I have the same name, memories, and knowledge; but thinking about any past event _terrifies_ me to the point where I feel like a stranger trapped in my own skin!

"So then what was the Red Wizard!? A full person who _died _and whom I've _replaced_? Or was he a mask I built and believed in? So much of what I think, feel, and believe is different that feel _insane_! Like I could be some imaginary mental construct that could _disappear_ one day!

"And I can't make any headway on thinking about that, because I don't trust my review of my memories. I've said I would have killed Leonlai if our positions had been reversed... but is that _true_? But now I almost remember feeling _betrayed,_ which would suggest I had trusted her- trusted our bond of kinship- to be _more_ than what I was taught to see them as. Is that a wishful rewriting of the truth? But Leonlai often rebuked me for being _soft-!_

"I-I-!" He couldn't look at her; couldn't register her surprised facial expressions. He walked to the side, very nearly pacing. "I could not compose a list of my own personality traits! Sometimes I'm hysterical and want to _die_ just because someone doesn't like me; other times I'm numb! I can be desperate for attention and feeling neglected, and then go days without saying more than two words, going through routines with the mindlessness of a zombie or conjured servant! Am I innovative or do I work by rote? Friendly or aloof? Mischievous or obedient? Honest or deceitful?

"Honest or deceitful...!" An inarticulate sound of frustration was all he could manage at first to explain his stress on that count. His face was red, and he could feel tears coming. "Yhelbruna, you, the fairies- everyone cares about the truth, here! Everyone, but even to stay here I have to make _another_ mask of _lies;_ and if I can lie so convincingly not just to other people but also to myself, then how am I supposed to figure out where the center of me is!?

"And I-I'm-!" the tears came, choking off the rant with a wave of heaviness. He grasped at his hair, and his eyes squeezed shut, and when he managed to speak again he was broken: "I was a terrible person and did not deserve for anyone to save me." Emotions vomited outward with that. "_Anyone_! I-I have done things- to people- I-I- _you_, you are biased, and you have only ever seen me as _this_, and you would not even pity me, much less offer me something so precious, if you had _ever once_ seen me as a _Thayvian_! And-!"

Her hands caught his shoulders and then his face, for she had crossed the cottage to him. He looked up at her shakily. Hazel eyes bored straight down into the center of him. "Thou thinkst thou has the capacity to frighten me?" she asked, as her fingers pressed over his cheek and smeared away the tears. "Doest thou wish to know with certainty how badly outmatched thou is in that arena?"

Homen laughed pathetically. "You want to frighten me? You only have to turn around and walk away." Her brows furrowed. He again couldn't meet her gaze. "I wanted... I wanted you to stay with me and calm me down; not leave me alone. I only managed to get back in this cottage after that by focusing on how upset you'd looked and wanting to straighten that out."

This notion so baffled Sheilaktar that she lowered her hands and stood staring out at nothing particular as she tried to digest what he meant.


	96. Dearest

Homen thought perhaps he could have used one of those rare 'Necromancer Hugs' at this juncture; but Sheilaktar's head looked to be somewhere else, and he wasn't certain he could survive her unresponsiveness if he tried to touch her and received no embrace in return.

With a heavy swallow, he turned his attention to the stew she was making. It smelled delicious, like onions, and onions were really his thing more than they were Sheilaktar's. Which, one supposed, meant she'd been making it for him? He stepped hesitantly past her. When she didn't move, he wiped his face, coming up to stir the broth and have a taste of it.

"Don't touch it," she called to him distantly.

He looked back at her with an internal cringe. "...Why?"

She looked at him and blinked once before speaking. "It has poppy in it."

Homen lowered the spoon.

Sheilaktar watched him vacantly a moment longer before turning to retrieve ingredients for a fresh pot of stew.

"You were going to sedate me?" he asked, but his Hathran didn't answer. He watched her as she began peeling chilled onions. Was that it? The extent of what she would say to him? He frowned and squirmed, disappointed. But then, after nearly a full minute:

"Homen." She leaned her palms against the table, as if unsteady. "Dearest. Can thou give me half an hour?"

_Dearest. _The word had an immediate calming effect upon the nerves in his spine, belly, and shoulders. Sheilaktar's sentiments did have a tendency to emerge in very efficiently chosen words at times.

"To reflect," she requested. "It takes me considerably longer to muster thoughts on such topics than my sisters would be willing to give me. But the things which thou have said deserve a thoughtful reply- at least, more than my empty staring or insensitive dismissal."

Had Sheilaktar left his side at the altar so that _she_ could think? That made a sort of sense. But then why had his otherwise perfectly good dinner ended up filled with narcotics? He glanced to the food, and then furrowed a brow across the room at his Hathran. Was it possible that she, in finding herself confronted by a distressing situation in a field she felt ill equipped to handle, had defaulted back to finding a solution for the problem using something she actually was proficient in, like magic?

A weak grin slid across his face. He wiped at his cheeks and the tear tracks there. "Sheilaktar. Were you going to 'undo' today by putting me to bed and removing my memory of the offer?"

The witch visibly bristled; her hair might as well have stood up on end. "Repressing," she corrected tersely, but then she remained anchored in place like a startled child caught in the act of stealing pastries.

His grin stretched at their sudden role-reversal. "_Sheilaktar_," he exclaimed softly. "Right after rebuking me for my alleged and unthinkable presumption that you'd 'claw your mistakes' out of my mind?"

She looked back at him with her lips parted and a sort of disoriented, dismayed, and apologetic expression dragging low at her features; and it was very clear to him she'd only wanted to fix whatever it was she'd done wrong.

He was almost giggling as he sniffled in and wiped his face. He felt better now after venting, even though nothing had yet been resolved. A reminder of Sheilaktar's fallibility- her humanity- left him feeling endeared and warm. For, although tranquilizers-in-stew ought to have appeared alarming on the face of things, 'twas actually a little silly to think about how Sheilaktar had actually happened upon that 'solution.' It must have seemed terribly logical in the moment.

Homen shuffled up to her. His smile must have off-balanced her, because her face remained open and readable. He lifted a hand and slowly settled it against her arm. _Everything will be okay. _"I'll go wait outside," he suggested fondly. That made the most sense; otherwise he'd keep interrupting her thoughts in wanting to talk immediately. She nodded in agreement, and stiffly turned back to the safety of her vegetables.


	97. A Sign

[Author's Note] Almost at the end! Two chapters today, Surthay II will start when Surthay I ends :)

* * *

It was easier to think, now. The sun had disappeared back into the Rashemi winter's infinite great white sky blanket, and the outside temperature had dropped noticeably. Homen rubbed his fingers together and made to sit himself down at the stoop. Then he paused, his eyes catching on the altar to the Triune. The goddess. _The book._

He found himself picking his way to it through the lawn of snow, almost without even intended to.

_The spellbook._

Homen stared down at the vellum as it fluttered slightly in the afternoon breeze. He chafed his arms and felt a less physical chill tingling down his spine. After a moment, he knelt down before the altar. He felt reverent towards it, but _spooked_, as if he might as well have been wearing Red Silk at the moment.

_I can't do this._

_...Can I?_

Was it true that making the spellbook required the Hidden One's approval? That all he had to do was _ask_, and she would provide her yea or nay? Then could not his own, flawed judgement be eschewed for that of a goddess who, theoretically speaking, had the power to know many things about himself which he did not?

_No_, that seemed to require too little commitment from him. The thing he'd be asking her was something which carried a great burden of responsibility, a responsibility he ought to be absolutely sure he'd never mishandle. And he _wasn't_ sure, was he? How could he be? At the very least, he had trouble believing he might ever live up to _deserving_ it.

_And what if the answer is 'nay'? _The hypothesized pain of been formally barred from magic by magic's highest authority figure, even if just because of geographic restrictions, sounded far worse than living in self-denial; and he'd have said 'no' to himself in her place.

_But what if she lets me? Shilekatar seemed so sure._

Hope.

"Thank you Bhalla," he found his mouth saying, _whispering_ because his vocal cords hadn't yet caught on to what was happening, "for the roof over my head each night, and the food in our pantry. Thank you for Sheilaktar, for Nudisne, for our goats, and for this safe haven around the cottage. Thank you for Nythra of Seven Rivers.

"Thank you, Khelliara, for Yhelbruna's decision and for my privilege of remaining in Rasheman. I know I misrepresented myself. If you can forgive me, please help me keep my lies as small and harmless as possible. I really like and care about the people here. Thank you for how Okku didn't actually eat me, and for what I've seen of the Feywild. Thank for the opportunity I've had to learn practical skills like craftsmanship, cooking, plants, and hunting.

"Thank you for-" he licked his lips, "Sheilaktar told me to thank you for the stag, in specific, as if she considered it a sign of your blessing. If that is true, then thank you. She... she also said I should ask you what my spirit animal is, though I wasn't sure what that meant. I suppose Rashemi might each have a entity like Okku as a patron? But then I don't know much about animal spirits..."

He swallowed, feeling foolish. But Sheilaktar had called the trinity goddess benevolent and a good listener, so perhaps she wouldn't hold his stumbling against him.

Clumsily, with butterflies in his stomach and tingles in his fingertips, he reached out to lift up the first tools upon the altar, the awl. "O' Hidden One. The Unseen Hand... M-Mystra..." He jettisoned the request out: "If it is your will I do this, please bless these materials."

But then immediately he felt like this brazenness deserved an apology, which came out just as fast: "I know I have little right to speak to you." He settled down the tool, and shakily picked up the next. "Not only do I hail from the only magocracy on Faerun arrogant enough to ban your temples, but I'm also breaking taboo in a land sacred to you just by presuming to live un-sequestered as a male mage."

His fingers trembled on the way to the bottle of ink. "I- _Of course_ I want to study the Weave. It itches my fingers whenever I'm around it. But that- that's _okay_\- because I'm... happy. Happy enough. Finally. If the one rule I have to obey to stay here is that I'm not allowed to touch the Weave, then I won't even ask for your _permission _to break that rule. Unless you _want_ me to."

He moved on to the ink well. "If you see something in me deserving of a second chance, please show me a sign."

His settle down the well, and picked up the quill pen. As he did so, though he was handling it with the greatest care, the feather snapped abruptly in two. The break was near the base, rendering the writing implement unusable.

Homen stiffened. _Oh._

Hope gushed miserably out and away, like a dam had splintered. Resignation and forlorn despair sank down into the cavities it had occupied, and he settled back on his heels with his head lowered and the broken quill cupped in his lap.

_I expected that._

Then why had it hurt?

He felt the wind and the cold then, as evening drew closer. Up in the trees somewhere ahead of him, Nudisne had returned to the cottage for the night and he heard her wingbeats and the crackling of small branches as she took up a perch. The goats momentarily protested her sudden arrival.

The broken quill had been made from a crow feather, and he wondered distantly whether Sheilaktar had gone on some ridiculous raven-plucking spree in order to make all of her cloaks once upon a time.

Then he heard the first droplets hit the ground. First one, then ten, then a torrent. A heat crested over him as if the sun had peeked out between the clouds again. No- _hotter_. His brow furrowed, and he looked dazedly up.

And there, perched in the tip-top boughs of the enormous oak tree ahead of him as if she were no heavier than a hummingbird, was the creature he'd mistaken for Nudisne. There: Red, orange, and golden, with her enormous, feathered wings draped out like a lady's dress, and with her elaborate, red, peacock tail spiraling the full hundred feet to the ground, was a _Phoenix_.

She was presently occupied in preening her golden chest feathers, and as a surreal fire rolled and billowed over her beautiful plumage, so did all the snow and ice for several hundred feet about her begin to melt and steam.

Homen staggered to his feet, gaping.

A Phoenix. No petite Island Firebird, or pseudo-elemental; no curious noblewizard's pet locked up in a tin cage. A Phoenix. A full, glorious, Imperial Phoenix, her body alive with the light of the sun.

She looked down at him for a brief moment, and her eyes stood out as shockingly dark blue. Her fringed fanned out once and relaxed and then gave herself a quick once-over with her beak, and then lifted her head and looked up towards the sky where the sun once more glistened brightly through a crack in the overcast clouds.

Then, with an enormous beat of her wings that hardly bowed or disturbed her tree, she took flight. Her wings sent a wave of hot air over the lawn, then another, and then she'd gone soaring up over the dense tree line of the Orchards and completely disappeared from sight. Homen stared after her, his jaw nearly sagging to his chest. Then he looked back to where she had been roosting. He shuffled a first step, then stumbled, then _ran_. He sloshed through rapidly freezing puddles of water, and skidded to his knees beside one that was boiling. Without stopping to think, he plunged his bare hands into the depths.

A feather. A dislodged feather. It could scarcely be seen at the bottom of the pool, and when he grabbed hold and pulled it frantically free, it was half-disintegrated, crusty, and ash-colored. For a moment it hung limply in his blistered grasp; tattered, unrecognizable, and steaming. Then it trembled in the sunshine and caught fire, blooming back into all its red, orange, and golden glory.

Homen bit his lips through the pain out of fear of dropping it back into the water. The heat died down to soothing levels only moments later now that it was no longer in danger of suffocation. He stared at it, trembling, with his fingers burned and his legs soaked to the mid-thigh with slush and ice-water. He ran his thumbs up the soft down interior of the feather, and then out to the crisp, silken texture of its tips.

The Phoenix.


	98. Mystra Said So

It was closer to dinner time than lunch when Sheilaktar finally made her way out of the cottage. She was carrying a thick ceramic bowl of stew which was lidded to keep the heat in. Homen, she saw, was sitting beside the altar. She walked briskly up to where he'd deposited himself, and would have joined him for supper.

But her gaze caught up one of the tools she'd left upon the altar: a basin of salted water. Homen had introduced dye to that solution some time ago, and the shape of dragon skin was just barely visible beneath the royal purple surface of the water.

_Oh! _She knelt beside her fosterling and placed the stew off to the side. Abruptly, food was not at all worthy of her attention.

"Homen," she called to him as she reached up to touch her fosterling's shoulder. He jumped slightly, but didn't look at her. "Homen?" She made to touched his cheek, but a dampness drew her attention instead to where he knelt upon the snow. "Thou-? Thou art wet!" she exclaimed in surprise, dabbing at the fabric. _Soaked! _Brittle and half-frozen, his coat and trousers clung to him ice-cold and sopping wet. "_Homen_!" she exclaimed in alarm, reaching across the boy to grasp both his shoulders and twist him firmly about. "Why art thou not _inside_!?"

The boy stared through her, gray eyes disoriented. "I had to dye the cover," he mumbled vacantly.

"Thou had but to introduce dye and flesh to water; the process thus completes itself!" she shouted in dismay, grabbing him under the shoulders and standing. "Get to thine feet, thou shall catch they death out here!"

He stumbled, leaning heavily into her as if his legs were leaden. "I- I had to-!"

"Stupid boy!" the Hathran spat with vicious anger. She balancedhim onto her shoulder, leaned over, clasped a forearm around the back of his knees, and scooped him off the ground.

"Ah! I-I-I'm sorry-!" he fumbled meekly, stress creasing over his face. A glance at him told Sheilaktar that he was a sharp tone away from bawling, so she bit down hard on her lips to keep any more invective from leaking out. Instead, she carried him swiftly inside, and brought him up before the fireplace. "Sh-sheilaktar, I-I'm- s-sor-"

"Hush, hush," the witch growled, because 'Silence!' was too strong and anything gentler was beyond her; she had too much adrenaline in her blood. She stripped off his coat and tossed it to the side. He made a plaintive sound and dragged it back towards him. She scowled as she removed each boot and stocking, and she unhesitantly untied the laces of his trousers. He frowned at her in dazed confusion for a moment. Then he gave a startled cry and clutched weakly at her elbows as she tugged the leggings down from his hips.

Sheilaktar shot him an irritable look. His purpled lips were squeezed tightly shut, and his curvaceous Mulani eyes were wide in horrified disbelief. There was a faint, ruddy heat about his pallor-stricken cheeks. Unexpectedly, she felt the urge to laugh, and her lips curved upward. "I have seen thou naked before, child," she informed him matter-of-factly, and then stripped off the sopping leggings and cast them aside.

_There_. Sheilaktar turned, grasped hold of his blankets, and pulled them from his bed. She threw them around her charge, and then lifted him up to get the heavy furs under his butt. By the tiny, breathy squeaks he was making, this was doing nothing for his feelings towards nudity. She shook her head and dragged down another blanket over top of his lap, before picking up his feet to have a better look at them.

"Thou cannot feel thy toes," the necromancer accused after a moment. She gathered up a stray work cloth and gently dabbed his legs dry.

The boy slumped backwards into his mound of blankets, exhausted. "No," he agreed, his fingers still pawing at his coat.

Unwilling to leave his side lest some other silly danger befall him, Sheilaktar cast a small _prestidigitation_ spell, and called one of her many vials of oil from its rack to her hand. She unstoppered it, and then gently spread the unguent over his feet and up his calves. Best not to chafe the skin at this point, in case frostbite had settled in.

"What exactly provoked his act of senseless martyrdom?" Sheilaktar grumbled at last while reaching across him to grab the fire tongs. She picked out a heated stone from her fire place- always wise to keep some in there- and drew it to her that she might wrap it in cloth. She swaddled her fosterling's legs in blankets with the bundled stone, and hoped that the pain of revitalized nerves would be mitigated somewhat.

It took Homen some time to answer. "I'm sorry. I was... thinking," he mumbled.

_Thinking? It is not so dangerous a pastime as this._ But her expression darkened knowingly. _ No. He warned me his head was running in circles. He specifically requested my counsel. He went outside to give me space to think. And I did not meet the deadline I myself had set. _She rubbed her forehead. _I should have seen to him with all haste. _"Thou needeth eat," she managed at last, and with that directive in mind, she eased herself to his opposite side and stood up on her knees that she might spoon out another bowl of stew.

"Thank you for not yelling." His voice was meek.

Sheilaktar twisted about to look back at him, her brow furrowed. Then she took in a slow breath, and settled herself back at his side with the bowl of food in hand. "Thou, em, thou elected to dye the... cover," she began slowly as the smell of cooked onion and rabbit meat wafted over them. _How did he get soaked in the first place?_

"I had to," he said, though his expression did not suggest he had been _forced_ so much as _compelled_. "Mystra bade me."

"The Hidden One?" Sheilaktar asked, abruptly curious. "How? By dumping a lake of water on thee?"

Homen looked to where his coat was, and then slowly drew something out from the pocket. Shining, gold-tipped, and blood red at it's heart: _There _was the answer to why he had remained wet and alive instead of freezing in place where he'd been sitting.

"A _Phoenix Feather_," Sheilaktar breathed, but then finally saw the state of his hand. She snatched it up by the wrist, seeing the scalds and blisters that had been left there. _Of course. _She reached for the other hand and found it equally maimed.

"She landed in the tree nearby," her Mulani child mumbled to himself as he looked off into his memories.

_Just outside? _If Sheilaktar had not felt its presence just outside her own home, that suggested it had been meant for Homen's eyes alone.

"I saw the feather come free, so I ran for it. It had fallen in the puddles, and was almost ash."

"I do not care about Phoenixes," she chastised at last. "Does thou not realize how severely injured thou art?"

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was wet."

"Didn't _realize _thou were _wet_," Sheilaktar sighed exasperatedly. _A Phoenix._ She tugged his sleeves (also damp!) down and surveyed the damage as gingerly as she could. _Well. _She gave an understanding nod of her head and then leaned over to get her arm beneath his shoulders that she might prop him up. He realized she wanted the tunic and tried to help her remove it. She chased his fingers away and pulled the shirt off of him herself.

The ghosts of old scars yet trailed across his chest, shoulder, and throat; nearly invisible unless one knew where to look for them. They had been from scalds, too, if Sheilaktar recalled. It seemed Homen was building up a ridiculous track record of hostile confrontations with boiling water. _A Phoenix._

"My hands hurt," he realized, and his voice still sounded overwhelmed. "And my feet."

"Yes, they do," the grouchy Hathran agreed. She plucked the Phoenix feather from his slender fingertips and threaded it behind his ear instead. "And thou art lucky I replaced my burn ointments before the year ran out. These injuries will take at least a week to heal, even with my herbs. Bhalla forbid thou hast lost the proper function of any of thy toes; that will take forever. There. Lay thy hands out for me just so." She turned and gestured for several more bottles and a bundle of cotton bandages.

"I've never seen you do that," Homen murmured. Sheilaktar glanced curiously at the half-completed question. "Use your magic for small things," he supplied faintly.

"It... teaches me some scant humility to do without," she said after a moment's pause. "But it seems that _thou..._" she plopped her bottles down and shook the first before unstoppering it, "thou can drive me to urgency."

He watched her with some renewed lucidity as she set to treating his poor hands. They needed to be thoroughly washed, balmed, and prayed over. After that, she bandaged each finger separately to keep them from sticking together, and wrapped the cotton down to the level of his wrist.

"Have thou maimed any other part of thyself?" she demanded at last, now that the work was finished. She tucked both of his hands quite deliberately down into the blankets, where they would be safe from future epiphany-related maimings."Or can I finally get some food into thy quaking self?"

"What happens now?" he asked her the real question, his breath shallow and his brows drawn up and together. He was frightened. He had every reason to be frightened, and yet none.

Sheilaktar leaned back on her heels, her fingers still lingering upon his skin. She took in a slow breath, and then lifted her fingers to his hair and caressed gently through the thin and silky strands. So foreign, and yet so familiar. "Right now, little Firebird?" she asked. "Right now, thou art going to eat thy dinner, and I am going to collect the things at the altar. Tomorrow, if thy hands are not too damaged, we shall start the tedium of cutting thy vellum into straight and orderly pages."

He swallowed hard.

"Thou wanted to talk earlier," she reminded the boy gently. "Does thou wish that now, or would thou like to wait until the morrow?"

A moment of silence. "I'm frightened," he admitted; like a mouse, like the child he was.

The necromancer nodded as she propped him up just a little more. "Thou shalt have me with you," she reminded him gently. "Thy darkest questions need not be wrestled with alone." She reached for the bowl of stew.

"I love you."

Sheilaktar looked at him, at the raw earnestness of his face and the tears threatening at his eyes. After a moment of awkward, stiff indecision, she reached gently across his torso and pulled the whole of him tightly into her collar and lap. She hugged and bundled him to her, tightly so; and drew in another deep breath in the silence. "Thou hast made my life brighter in every conceivable way, little Firebird," she promised fervently into his hair. "I had lived here years without another person and felt nothing of loneliness. Yet now the thought of losing thee drives me to panic within heartbeats, and I shudder to imagine waking up to find thou art no longer here with me. If I am ever loud, testy, or unreasonable, then know it is only because I care about thee with all my heart and yet have not better learned how to say so. Thou art free to reprimand me then as thou must."


	99. Thay Prefers Noodles

The cottage air was rich with the smell of baking bread. Light trickled through the window, where sweet morning birds were calling from the branches of the apple tree.

Homen scraped his work knife gently against its whetstone to keep it dressed, and then rested the blade against his guide. He drew it downward quickly, surely, with his gaze following it the whole of the way. Four cuts, and he had another perfectly unblemished page.

Soft footfalls came up beside him. "How goes the paper making?" Sheilaktar asked as she settled down a plate beside him.

Homen lifted his head to smile at her as he settled down the knife and stretched out his bandaged hands. "Painful," he admitted. Then he saw the delightfully buttered roll of bread she'd given him, and set upon it gleefully with all troubles forgotten.

"Finger burns: the bane of the wizarding profession." She sat on the edge of the work table.

"Mn," he mumbled garbled through mouthfuls of bread. "So I've decided that Red Wizards are gluttons for healing potions, and this must be the real reason clergy have such high social rank in Thay: they produce a valuable commodity for spoiling the elite."

Sheilaktar laughed, surprised to hear him talk so casually about a past life. "Oh? And how art thou holding up healing the natural way?" She took one of his hands to investigate.

He swallowed his mouthful down and grinned wryly. "I'll survive." Then he lowered his gaze to their hands. "They... abhor real vulnerability, but developing a high tolerance for pain or fear is a compulsory set of exercises for mages."

There it was again: He looked to be testing to see if it was acceptable to tell her such things .The witch smiled."Yes, thy ability to concentrate amid discomfort is exemplary, child." She pinched his cheek. "It sees thou straight through freezing theyself to death."

He looked at his lap and hummed bashfully.

"It is true that being able to handle what one's body confronts thee with is a sign of discipline," Sheilaktar explained as she began unraveling his bandages. "But one should not _ignore_ one's body. It is too valuable a sensing tool. Eat up, I need to change the dressing on these regardless."

"Thank you." He went back to eating his roll.

A few minutes passed as she gently pulled back sticky bandages, washed his hand clean, and covered it back up in soothing healing ointments.

"Yesterday, thou wanted badly to discuss thine identity with me," she recalled as she began to apply a fresh bandage.

"Oh... I... I feel a lot better," he offered.

"I would like to put forth an idea for thy perusal regardless. But first, I wanted to ask thee a question." She glanced to the side and then lifted a hand to a rack, where she pulled a book free and tossed it to the table for him to see..

He leaned over to spy the cover. _A Translated Dictionary of Mulhoran-_

"What did thou call thy _actual _elder sister? She was also thy mentor, no?"

Homen felt every organ and muscle within himself clench involuntarily. He looked up at Sheilaktar, and heat rose in his face. "I-" He swallowed. "S-... Senneta. I also called her Senneta."


	100. Talking, Finally

[Author's Note] I just put up chapter 99 and I might write a few after this tonight. I'm guessing the story will end at 105 or so and we'll move on to Surthay II.

* * *

Sheilaktar glanced up from his hand with a prodding look.

Home swallowed and evaded her eyes. "I am sorry. I- I shouldn't have called you that. I will stop and I can use the Rashemi word for mentor-"

His Hathran interrupted him: "Take a moment to think about why thou art so upset."

The Mulani boy took in a shaky breath and then relinquished it again. "I... I didn't realize why I'd called you it a-at the time," he fumbled. _Please don't let her get angry. _"I was repressing everything. I didn't remember anything. And then when I did, it just kept coming out of my mouth."

"Out of habit," Sheilaktar suspected. "And why not? I fill a functionally similar role in thy life, no?"

He grimaced, and the look of blatantly insecurity about him worsened. "I ought not compare you with Leonlai," he whispered.

"Why?" his Hathran challenged as she finished with his one hand and reached for the other. "Thou shared a room with her, ate with her, and studied under her. If I read between the lines, she took much more of an interest in thee than family obligations could have warranted. She very nearly _mothered_ thee. Perhaps I am right in assuming she was near to my age, as well?"

The words settled down, cold, in the pit of his belly. His mouth trembled as a facial expression tried and failed to form. "You are _nothing_ like her," he intoned at last.

"Oh?"

"She _killed_ me. She looked me in the face as I screamed and begged, and she _killed me_. She walked past me and did not even kneel to check my pulse."

"Which greatly traumatized and disillusioned thee," Sheilaktar observed. "Homen, it is not shameful to admit thou loved someone, even when they've demonstrated they did not love thee in turn."

His stomach churned. He grabbed hold of the table and stood quickly; craving air, stillness, numbness, escape to silence.

"_Nadezdha,_" she called him softly.

He nearly leaped out of his skin and lifted his gaze to her hazel eyes. His interior churning paused for a moment, as if held aside by no more than that quiet stare.

"Do not be afraid of me," the necromancer requested earnestly.

_No. Never. _"P-people," he sputtered at last, "do not tell eachother how they feel in Thay. N-not the things that can be _used. _It c-can only be _deduced_ from actions, but those actions are inherently suspect as manipulations, w-with ulterior motives. My gender is preferable for inheritance in Thay, and if she wanted to make a power play without weakening the family, she could have done so by keeping me _loyal_ to her."

"Ah," Sheilaktar observed. "But then she must have first judged thou had the _potential_ to be loyal."

Homen swallowed. "What?"

"Thou told me thou once had older male siblings, whom she did not take an interest in and whom did not survive. She must have seen something in thee: Either the potential for a rare companion, or the potential for a loyal minion. Or both, perhaps. She did, after all, pour years of her life into ensuring thou survived."

He reached out to steady himself against a shelf of preserves, and looked away.

"Which," Sheilaktar continued, "she could not have done without desensitizing and hardening thee to every other threat. That is the theory I want to propose to thee, Homen: that an optimal Thayvian nature did not come naturally to thee, but that thou converted to it under her patience guidance, and made it thy religion.

"During the coup, thy world was crumbling around thee, and everything had become inverted. Yet it was only as thy patron saint abandoned thee, that thy faith imploded. And thou were left with almost nothing: A quiet and malnourished waif in the corner of thy own mind, suddenly bereft of a fanatical projection of thyself which had always taken up the majority of the space."

"A mask," he repeated. "A lie."

"It was real enough to thee at the time. There are many kinds of belief system, child, and some are more in keeping with our basic natures than others. Some challenge us to grow. Others suppress us. Thou might soon wear yet another mask, but it does not need to be one so alien to thee. Do not take disillusionment with _one_ faith to assume thou will never find anything worth believing in."

"Who is _me_?" He looked up at her, clutching miserably at his elbows.

"Were thou not listening?" Sheilaktar asked him. "Thy sister answered this question for thee, long before thou asked it. Thou art sensitive. Loyal. Thou desires meaningful connections to other people." She stood up, and approached him slowly and with great care. For once, he did not break eye contact. He stared at her as if clinging to flotsam adrift in the ocean. "Thou craves stability and guidance in thy life, which is why thou seeks the company of people stronger than thyself.

"Yet thou seems to believe this is a sign that thou art mentally unhealthy. Rashemi would not think such. Thy Thayvian upbringing emphasized independence, but thou are no longer in Thay. Here, independence," she gestured to herself, "is considered a character flaw. Instead it is _thy_ nature to pick up on other people's feelings better than thou even understand thy own.

"Homen," she rested her hands on his arms, and then slipped them up to his face. "Thou art not evil."

He inhaled tremulously and closed his eyes tightly. "I need a hug," he pleaded through a few stray tears.

Sheilaktar had determined he would most likely need another hug, and so she was entirely prepared to give him sagged trustingly into her collar. She pet his hair in a slow rhythm.

"Yhelbruna burst out laughing when she realized something as sweet as thee had actually gotten under my armor," Sheilaktar remarked after a moment. "I suppose 'sweet' alone bores me; thou are more complex than that. Complex enough to like _me_, even.

His fingers tightened against her.


	101. Terribly Busy!

Sheilaktar always looked very intimidating when she first awoke, which an amused Homen had realized was nothing more than her resting facial expression applied to a state of mild dishevelment. She had quite a _stare_, even when she was thinking about nothing much at all, and he could easily understand why anyone might deem her unapproachable.

Homen presented her with her morning mug of blueberry tea as she shuffled over to peruse her breakfast. She grunted inarticulately in thanks and greeting, and dropped into her seat with an unintentionally nefarious aura of sheer presence to her. The way her eyebrows squeezed together as she sipped at her tea resembled a scowl of intense concentration.

Homen returned to his broom and to sweeping the floors. He watched his Hathran admiringly as her mind woke up for the day, and as her expression caught up with her sentiments. She liked the dollop of sour cream he'd added to their morning soup, he could tell. He smiled.

The events of the last few days had blurred together, into a warm glow in the pit of his chest. His gaze drifted up to her mussed hair, and abruptly he was struck by the unusual temptation to go over and brush it for her. And braid it? He'd been practicing his braiding.

For a brief a second, that sounded very nice. Then he cringed internally. To walk up and touch someone's hair out of the blue was an odd thing to do, and there was little precedent to suggest it would be welcomed. No, no. How awkward.

Blushing at the unexpected impulse, he studied the floor. Then he glanced shyly back up at her. He cleared his throat. "Sheilaktar? What ought an Unproven call her mentor?"

"Depends," she grumbled into her soup. "Wychlaran often call one another 'Sister,' just as thou have done. I am fine with 'Senneta.'"

Homen thought about Leonlai. Then his thoughts gravitated back to Sheilaktar, and to how, erm, _efficiently_ she had stripped him of clothing the day he'd seen the Phoenix. Heat bloomed up about his neck and cheeks. _Dark skin, yellow and red paint, rattles, dancing, her chest, her *thighs*!_ The images from Midwinter flurried once more through his mind, and he turned away and closed his eyes.

No, no, and no. Brooming. Butter Churning. Vellum. Chores. There was nothing more foolish than to cultivate an unsolicited, unreciprocated, physical interest in so irreplaceable a person.

_Too late. You should definitely not be calling this woman 'Senneta,' _the Reptile chortled up smugly from the base of his skull. Homen was immediately vexed with it for saying anything at all; at least until the Bird chimed in from the other side of his brain to gush with alarming excitement: _Her hair is the richest, most *beautiful* mahogany_.

Homen sighed exasperatedly, as it seemed all his internal voices were set to fluster him that morning. He set aside his broom and marched stiffly for the cottage door. Surely this was something that shoveling goat poop could remedy.

* * *

Homen pushed the cottage door open and was a full stride within the domicile before his mind realized what he'd accidentally done.

Sheilaktar was sitting beside the fire with a heated basin of water at her side and a wash-cloth in hand. She'd loosed her clothes off into a pile about herself, and was taking the time to painstakingly scrub herself free of dead skin that had been building up over the chill winter.

_Bathing._ He stared momentarily. _She is bathing._

He backed up sharply.

"Homen?" she called. "I left my comb over there and it's freezing. Would thou bring it to me?"

He paused, winced, swallowed hard, and then eased the cottage door shut to stop cold air from pouring in. With a bolstering gulp of air, he shuffled over to pick up her comb.

Sheilaktar glanced up as Homen reached her side. To her amusement, he stayed at arm's length as he held the comb out to her, and his gaze stayed high and turned off to the side. "One would think bathing with frolicking women at midwinter and being swamped by half-naked Fey would have broken thee of any fear of nudity."

He held out the comb a little further.

She grinned, and eyed him up and down with a shrewd intellect. "Ah, unless thou art not so much afraid of _me_ as of accidentally demonstrating some... excitement?"

His face went very nearly purple, he blushed so hard.

Sheilaktar cackled. "I am not going to cut it _off. _What exactly doest thou think I've never seen before?" she could help snickering as he squirmed. "Ah very well." She took the comb. "Welcome to the awkwardness of puberty, Dearest."

He retreated immediately, busying himself on the opposite side of the cottage. He picked up his things and felt over the corset. It would need some modifications, just so any large-breasted Nythra-hugs did not accidentally, um, reveal any of this 'excitement' Sheilaktar was prodding him about.

_'What's it like living with a Necromancer, Nadezdha?'_ the boy thought to himself in Nythra's voice. _'Oh, it's alright,' mental-Nadezdha responded to imagined-Nythra. 'Only...' 'Only what?' 'Well, heavens forbid an embarrassing anatomical situation should arise. Necromancers apparently have no shame, and less pity." _He overturned the corset and then reached for his seamstress book.

"Silly boy," Sheilaktar crowed deviously. "Thou cannot blush and flee like that every time thou sees a naked woman. Come here."

"No thank you!" he called back, and furiously set to polishing countertops.

"Homen! Who will help me reach my back then?"

"I'm terribly busy, sorry!"

She broke out laughing hard, and at least she'd only been teasing him.


	102. Bookbinding

Homen knew he ought to take some time to wash before Sheilaktar woke on the morrow, lest the woman set to teasing him about cleanliness. He slipped on work gloves first so as not to introduce any more water to his bandages, and then hung up his cloak over a string of gourds to create a makeshift curtain. _There. _He set to scrubbing.

Once he was clean, he redressed himself and set to his normal routine. Sheilaktar woke not long after, mussed his damp hair as she walked by, and then tossed his hood up over his head to keep him from catching his death. He tugged it dutifully into place, and set off to tend to the goats.

Soon after he was back inside, working on his vellum. Every set of eight sheets was cut just tiny fractions of an inch differently from one another. Sheilaktar explained that this was so that they would line up properly when folded together in batches. He was embarrassed to say he'd never once studied the binding of any book before, despite having handled hundreds of them.

Sheilaktar decided to bake something for lunch, and by noon the cottage was filled with the delicious scent of apple preserves. When the food was finished, she came up behind him with a tray full of pies baked with cinnamon, and unlike anything he'd seen outside the Midwinter festival.

"How goes the paper making?" she inquired as he gathered up a pie for a gustatory examination. Oh! The flavor! It was delicious.

"This is a delight on the senses," he described her cooking delightedly. "The vellum spread are all cut... I was just ruling the last ones."

"Mm," she nodded. "Get thy work gloves and the tongs. Let us see what color thy spellbook shall be."

_Spellbook spellbook spellbook. _He finished his pie quickly as she set up a rack for the cover to dry on, and placed some mottled rags beneath it to catch the drippings.

"What was the dye pigment?" he asked as he joined her with the requisite tools, and they extracted the one-cream-colored skin from its solution.

"Blue pokeweed berries. Nothing particularly special. But the mordant... Ah! The mordant serviced well," she approved, for the skin had turned an incredibly becoming splatter of creamy lavenders and dull violets.

"Will the color fade with time?" he inquired, clipping the leather on its new rack to dry.

"No, no. Dragon flesh is resilient even without its scales. I had to use a mordant- a bonding chemical- specifically prepared for acidic dragonflesh. No, that stain will last longer than thou shall live."

He smiled, gingerly admiring the leather as he twisted its corner gently. Sheilaktar waved that he should rejoin her at his work desk, and so he quickly took off his gloves again.

"There is something I have wanted to confess to thee about the day Igathor attacked," she said as he joined her at the table. "There was a reason he became so distracted in targeting thee."

Homen looked up at her. A few seconds crawled by in silence, and he suspected she wasn't certain how to continue. "I've made a guess as to why that was, actually." Her gaze shifted back to him. "Well, he mentioned my youth and called you a murderer. When I think back, you'd showed up at the cottage with acid burns only a short while previous to that. Altogether, I'd wager you must have slain a green wyrmling."

She inclined her head to the side. "Thou art perceptive, boy. Few are the men and women who would ascribe relatable motives to a wild thing's behavior. Fewer still can pick up on such foreign expressions of emotion."

"You gave me a clue, recently," he reminded her. "You told me to treat all leather with morbid reverence."

His witch nodded, pleased that he'd taken this lesson to heart. "Twas three young lindwurms, whose dam and sire had clearly taught them naught but scorn for Wychlaran. I warned them that they had grown too bold in their raids, and that they had traveled too far from their lair. When they ignored me and made to assault a village under my protection, I was waiting for them. The sight of me did not deter them, so I did what I had to."

"The concept of 'Balance,' again," Homen noticed. "Neither the dragons nor the humans can get everything their way if both species are to continue existing." She grunted. "But that case must have been much clearer there than with the doomed Feywild woman," he pointed out.

Sheilaktar nodded. "Yes. But what about when it came to handling Igathor? I killed an enraged grandparent. A wicked, sadistic, and arrogant grandparent but... in that moment, his motivation_ was_ vengeance. Any human might have done the same, in his shoes."

Homen winced. Then he nodded. "So one should always treat derived components with respect."

"You know, I appreciate thy understanding on this matter," she admitted. "Well, as to thy vellum, thou ae to tightly fold and press the pages into folios. They must stay very neat, so thou shall use a dull piece of bone to help crease them, and ensure thou art folding them as crisply as possible."

He nodded, and moved to do as she had instructed. She produced needle and thread as he worked, and then came up and showed him how to bind each packet into a tight pamphlet. eight spreads became sixteen leaves and thirty-two pages. The process repeated itself.

When they had sewn all of the packets, Sheilaktar brought him some screw clamps and flat pieces of wood. Together, they carefully arranged and pressed folios into the work table, until at long last they were bound securely in place with a consistent edge on all four sides. The backs of the folios butted up perfectly against the edge of the desk, with long threads trailing in every direction.

They spent the afternoon creating the binding from the book out of leather cords and good sewing habits. As Homen stitched each folio meticulously into the binding, Sheilakter marveled once more at how steady and deft his hands were.

"I think my Phoenix feather is supposed to be a quill," he mentioned as he worked.

"Mm? It is a bit long and unwieldy to be a practical writing implement, no? Well, I suppose it could do. What a purpose for a Imperial Phoenix feather: to be a child's pen."

"Hey if you have a complaint, take it up with Mystra," Homen told her cheekily, and she gave a big laugh at that.

"Here you must call her _The Hidden One_, Homen. That is the proper Rashemi name. Well, I'll carve the nib for thee myself," she promised him. "Hopefully it will require no frequent sharpening."

It was evening by the time he had finished the long, complex, braided stitches which wound down the back of the book. Sheilaktar bade him take a break for the night. When he proved far too excited, she explained they would need to cut thin plates of wood for the sides and back of the book, around which they would later wrap their dragon skin cover.

Evening found him patiently sawing through some old oak wood she found among her things. Later he would need to sand and prepare the wood to proof it against rot.

Sheilaktar smiled to herself as she watched him:

Her companion looked happy.


	103. Dedication

[Author's Note] There will still be a few more chapters. I'm thinking seeing Nythra one more time before Surthay I ends could be fun ;)

* * *

Done.

It was _done_.

He licked his chapped lips. Then he looked nervously up at Sheilaktar, who rewarded him with a proud smile. _Yes. It's done. _He peer back down at the newly bound book, with snug vellum cushioned tightly between purple dragon skin covers. He ran his fingertips over the smoothed surface, and then painstakingly opened the cover and turned to the very first page.

He had made a book. He had made a _spellbook_.

A tumultuous feeling billowed inside him, like wind in sails. What now? "Where do I start?" he croaked.

"That is a good page for starting upon," she commented smugly, and then slipped his Phoenix quill into his fingertips. "I've mixed up a pot of ink for thee."

A part of him wanted to tell a joke, something like: 'Shouldn't I have to make that myself, too?' The rest of him was too numb with quivering anticipation to say anything at all. She gathered up a clay vessel and a lightly carved ox horn which she'd filled to the brim with fresh ink. Both of these she brought over beside him, and arranged for his usage.

_What should I write? _He felt unexpectedly paralyzed. For months he had craved paper, and now he scarcely knew what to do with it.

"Write a dedication page," Sheilaktar suggested. "Just as a test of thy tools."

"What words should I use?" His spoken Rashemi had improved _dramatically _since taking up residence with Sheilaktar, but his spelling would still be abhorrent. That he'd never taken up using 'thys' and 'thous,' was most likely out of linguistic coincidence, as Mulhorandi pronouns greatly resembled Rashemi ones.

Sheilaktar nudged his abax towards him, where the black wood backing and smooth white sand beckoned to be doodled in.

_Ah!_ _That's right. _An abax was for composing one's thoughts _before_ setting them to paper. This was why such devices were so common in poorer regions of the world. He settled down his pen, and picked up a stylus to nudge at the sand.

"Do you have a Rashemi dictionary?" he asked, but she was already shaking her head.

"We shall buy one for thee. How does thou feel about Greengrass? It is not a genuinely obligatory festival. And I would be lying if I were to say I had traveled anywhere to take part of it over the last two or three years. Or four. Or five... Ehm, but it would be a good opportunity for thou to see more of Rasheman, and to see thy peers. I feel thou needs to get out and see friendly faces more frequently than I do..."

"One exciting thing at a time," he instructed her with a stern point of his pen. "Now what in the name of the goddess am I to write?"

"Date it, describe the purpose of the book and how it was constructed, thank the goddess, express thy feelings about thy spirit animal, and convey thy hopes for the future in a brief and eloquent paragraph. That should keep thy mind busy for an hour or so, and I shall correct thy spelling for thee."

He looked down at the abax thoughtfully.

"And ah, sign it Homen. Sign it truthfully and in full, for thine own sake, so that this need be no true lie to thee. I will help thee disguise the first and last names so that they cannot be accidentally glimpsed."


	104. Alphabet

The urge to make efficient use of space warred and raged against the urge to present all information in the aesthetically rich glory it so rightly deserved. Each page of vellum seemed so precious, so _valuable, _but the information he was transcribing was more valuable still. It was strange to work on a spellbook one conceived of as a work of art.

At first, he thought to compromise by presenting raw material in bold strokes and then compressing his notes into the margins. The paper _itched _to be written on. But when he saw the first dark strokes of the Wychlaran Draconic-Sylvan alphabet flowing out onto his soft vellum sheets, he was struck by how beautiful they were upon the paper. He left them without notes.

_I am starting from scratch. At scratch, I should have no notes to compress_. _No conclusions to draw. No insights to make._ He recognized many of the symbols, but bottled down on the urge to capture that recognition in ink. He held back from referencing a past life. He painted out only the names for them which Sheilaktar shared, and wrote them exclusively in Rashemi._ Everything is new. Everything is fresh._

As they moved onward into more complicated glyphs, he struggled with the chaotic liberation of simply _letting go:_ Letting go of patterns, of the need to put Mulani names to Wychlaran things, of old memories of study.

Rashemi patterns were named after the trees. The trees, first, then the waters and heavenly bodies, and the spirals of snail shells and crystaline points of snowflakes...

"Boy," Sheilaktar chided as she watched him reduce his speculations into fewer and fewer sentences upon the abax, "thine insights into how to _interprit_ what thou sees are surely of more value than the raw information itself. Thou art no clerk to value the _transcription_ of this information more than than the _synthesis_."

"I am only at the beginning," he disagreed, because it was very hard and strange trying to let magic slip through his fingers, all in order to _learn_ it again from the beginning.

"Which is the most important place to build study habits," she drawled, and he looked up at her in hurt and surprise.

"I haven't left this desk for days," he protested feebly.

"_Exactly_," she told him slyly, but did not explain herself.

Each day she would draw a new set of characters with chalk, and give him an introduction to each of them. He would spend the rest of the day taking old concepts out of his memory and putting new oddly fitted ones into their place, memorizing the information by route. What had he done wrong? At least her reproach did not look as... _hostile_... as some of his other tutors'. (_Forget them. They are nothing. There is only the witch now. Focus on her._)

"Tomorrow," Sheilakter redirected, "I will scribe the first spell I expect thou to learn. It is there that thy progress with stall, and that is to be expected. A mage's first spell is- without contest- always her hardest."

"I should have some small advantage." He wasn't so worried about _being_ _able_ to cast as he was worried about being able to cast _right_.

"Thou hast the worst handicap in the world," she intoned. "Thou merely has not seen sufficient proof to understand why. But when thou hits up against this wall, thou must not surrender to it. Perservere."


	105. Enchanting

Homen waited with held breath as Sheilaktar transported a loose leaf of velum and fresh well of ink to her work station. She sat elegantly but without much ceremony, her crow-feathered cloak still dusted with snow from her latest hunting trip.

"Are you so disinterested in my calligraphy?" she quipped dryly as she prepared her quill and ink stone.

"Oh... I..." He had been standing shyly (awkwardly) off in the corner, but now inched closer to her. "I didn't want to distrub you."

Sheilaktar turned a raised brow up to him. "Thou art my ethran now, are thou not? My apprentice."

Icy tingles shuddered along his spine. He hugged his arms to himself and bobbed his head. He was. He _was_. The quill proved it, no?

Her gaze softened a little. "Come here, silly child. Watch thy _Master_ work her craft."

His insides trembled again but did not paralyze him. After a pause to gather his courage, he shuffled up to her side and took the stool and the invitation she had provided for him.

She attended to her inkwell. No book lay beside her, whether spell-filled or otherwise. She was working without any concrete reference whatsoever.

"Can thou guess how many others I have done this for?" she queried wryly as she sharpened her quill nib.

"Scribed spellery?" he asked slowly.

"Scrolls, yes, I have made scrolls," she mused. "But shared of my magic?" She glanced at him fondly, and then dipped her quill into water and ink, and at last brought it to the parchment. "No, never. That I have not done for anyone." Homen might have stared at her, but then she was _writing_.

Sheilaktar laid down the first bold stroke of violet ink with confidence and purpose. She worked slowly, with the patience of one who was out of habit with writing often and so was willing to take their time to do it right. Never once did she hesitate in the fall of a single bristle. She worked from the outside inward, and yet when she finished the composition of sigils was as balanced and elegant as if she had worked through a thousand drafts beforehand.

"There," she murmured when she had finished the work and powdered the paper so as to set the ink. "Thine lesson." She turned and fed the page into his hands. "Every functional construct thou requires to understand it, I have taught thee. The theory behind their connections, and how that power manifests, I will continue to teach thee. Still, the rest of the struggle is thine own."

He had never been the most talented of Red Wizard, but he had always been hard-working and pedantic. Still, as he looked over the whirling spirals of violet, trying to piece together what he had learned, and struggling with flashes of conflicting spirals from another education now long past, he concluded that he had no idea where to even start. "I... I have never seen anything like it."

"No," Sheikaltar murmured solemnly. "No you would not have. I will answer any question you compose, Homen... but to get the answers you need, you will need to determine the right questions. That will take time."

"I am sure I can do it," he looked up at her worriedly.

Sheilaktar reached over and gently grasped his chin. "My affection for thee does not hinge on thine capacity for magic, dearest," his Wychlaran told him sternly. "Thine company is wholly sufficient, and infinitely more pleasant than any spell. Remember that whenever thou art anxious."

He stared up at her for a very long moment, at this woman who was his mentor, protector, arcane master, scary-grumpy-death-dragon-roomate, and a gloriously-red-haired exotic dancer, all in one.

"Yes, Sheilaktar."


	106. Study Habits

A bowl of soup had been in front of him for quite some time. Similar bowls had been there before, but this was the first in a long while he found himself truly tasting it. The flavor him him like a wall of sandbags, burying him warmly in the seasoned, dark flavors of fresh rabbit and roasted vegetables.

"I... I _can't_ do it," he slowly realized slowly as he gazed at the bowl in wonderment.

Sheilaktar glanced up at him from her latest bone carving. "Mn?"

"I... _can't_... understand it," he breathed with a bewildered glance at his spell book. After a moment, he carefully closed it- it had not been closed almost since its conception- and rested his fingers upon the beautiful, rich, purple, dragon-skin cover. When Sheilaktar said nothing, he slowly twisted about in his chair to look at her. She sat there languidly, with her legs stretched out and crossed, and her lips pressed together smugly with a warm smile in her eyes. She certainly didn't seem _concerned_. "I cannot understand enchantment," he announced, a little louder this time, in case she had not heard.

"Oh thou can't, mn?" she drawled.

"No."

Her smile showed teeth and she went back to carving.

"Senneta...?"

"Are thou ready to hear mine advice on thy study habits?" she queried.

He swallowed, and wondered how there could be any hope at all when his mind was simply blank of magic. He fell dull, and numb, and confused. "I do not think anything can help me 'study' this. I... I understand nothing. It isn't within my abilities."

"Pish-posh," she dismissed with a flick of her hand. "Doest thou take me for an ethran, unable to see the potential in my own pupil? I did not break with thousands of years of tradition to train thee out of _pity_, boy."

He swallowed, slowly drawing in her words to digest them.

"Thou trusts me?" she asked with a flick of a glance towards him. "Thou trusts mine judgement?"

Homen nodded. "Always, Senneta. Only..."

"Only what?" she prodded with a raising brow.

He thought about the question, and then shook his head. "I am ready to listen." He took in a deep breath to steady himself, that he might try and open his ears.

"Very well. This is what I have to say: Go outside, and play."

He straightened. "What?"

"Take thy spellbook, put it in thy carrying satchel, take it with thee, go outside, forget about it's existence entirely, and just play. Talk to the flowers. Listen to the birds. Catch a few frogs. Frolic."

"T-that is how you want me to study...?" His voice was surely faint.

"The _only_ proper way to study the weave is to live through it, silly child," she chastised as if she found him adorable. "The area around the cottage is peaceful in this season, if thou does not stray too far towards the deeps. Perhaps thou might even bring me back a few first buds of spring for my potions, mm?"


	107. The Solution is Breasts

There were no flowers to 'talk to' yet. There were not many frogs, either. There was scarce grass to 'frolic' in, though one supposed there were always birds to listen to.

Homen sat himself down in the roots of an Ash tree, looking out over slow defrosting of Rashemen with its tinkling waters. Scruffy shrubs and wheat grasses poked through with fresh green. Had Sheilaktar merely sent him out here to clear his mind and reflect?

It was one matter to accept the instruction: play. It was another entirely to put that into action without feeling absurd and foolish. How did one spontaneously combust into play? Perhaps that was why Sheilaktar planned for them to go to Greengrass! Nythra was many years older than him, but could conspire and laugh like a toddler. Rashemi 'young adults' were nothing like Thayvian ones: ruthless self-sufficient hunters one second, but playful puppies the next.

Although _some_ more so than others! Since when did Sheilaktar, herself, engage in play? By her own admission, her childhood had been cutthroat and dangerous! Was it not hypocritical to tell him to 'play?' Then again, she had been a wild child living amongst Fae. And one supposed verbal wit was its own form of play- Sheilaktar conducted plenty of that. A playful mindset, then, was different from genuine immaturity.

Yet Sheilaktar had instructed him to 'live' in the Weave, which suggested a more active and physical sort of play. Of course Homen could go walking or jogging in the woods, or practice his combat footwork, but all of these activities were more in time with _discipline_ than with the free-form sort of play which Nythra had coaxed out of him. Play, one reasoned, ought to evoke some sort of... well... elated sensation. At the very least, it ought to induce smiling.

He tried to think about what a child might do if left to their own devices, and decided that imaginative story weaving, mimicry, and vertigo play- such as spinning about- were all natural. Yet again it was difficult to seize on to any of those things without feeling foolish. Why stare out at the horizon imagining the trees were people when, somewhere out there, the trees really were people? How could he simply stand and spin about until dizzy, and feel anything but ridiculous? Goddess forbid he indulge in free association too long either, as something inevitably would drag his imaginings back to Thay and induce a fit of anxiety.

_Goddess._ Thayvian wizard children didn't have any idea how to play, unless it was slopping about in the entrails of their freshly conquered peers at the goading of questionable familiars. Was it any wonder they were all insane?

No, there was a way to do this. There was a way to banish that dwelling tendency from his head for a time, and induce enough self-giddiness to elicit ridiculous and excitable behaviour from himself. There was a way to forget who he was for a time and, more importantly, truncate this lengthy pedantic inner discourse on the nature of playful activity:

He needed his dress.


	108. Hmm, hmm, hmm

Sheilaktar didn't make a peep when Homen returned to the cottage, rummaged about in his meager belongings, and extracted _the dress. _Nor did she say anything when he went looking for the ochre and charcoal, or borrowed a little silver mirror. He was grateful, because he did feel a little silly at first.

Out in the chill of late winter and early spring, perched upon the low-lying bows of a friendly pine, _Nadezdha _Odesseiron sat totally happy with herself, with her legs cozily enveloped in the pleats of her outfit. She painstakingly ground up and applied the makeup which would complete her outfit. Why was the makeup important? Why was the dress? Putting on a face made it easier to escape old thoughts. This was her face for Rasheman, peculiar as it might have been, and it was _hers_ almost more than any visage she'd ever shown to Thay. There wasn't anything silly about it, unless one used 'silly' as a synonym for 'enjoyable.'

She took stock of herself in the mirror, ensuring the result was _feminine_ and not simply _androgynous_. Hmm. For now it would do, but she'd need to practice and practice so as to get better at this. _Especially_ as she aged, because her features might not remain so easily disguised, and this was something she could _never_ slip on, in all the furture days of her life. Heh. Her make-up could never be 'so-so.' _That_ was a rather funny thought.

One supposed she was lucky to be gender-bending in a land and in a gender role where face paints were normal. Might she try dabbling in something more exotic than smoke and rogue? In war time, Rashemi were known to make copious use of blue and purple woad? Yes, and Nadezdha had seen faces at the festival that had been painted or tattooed _quite_ exotically. Some of the Hathran had even substitute paint for real masks.

She refined the edge of her eye-shadow and then packed up her supplies and washed her hands of them. As she finished up, she concluded that was a strange mundane pleasure in being well-groomed and looking presentable. And if that meant being pretty, well, then she was content to be pretty. After all, she was living in a society dominated by women who made a habit of critiquing her foreign physical appearance. If she wanted to belong more easily, then she also wanted to appease their sensibilities. And while she'd never pass for Rashemi herself, she could at least dispose of various things they might complain to her or tease her about.

Nadezdha stood, blowing on her hands and rubbing them against one another to ward off the chill of winter water. Ehg. She'd forgotten she had no means of warming them out here. Silly. Things like _heat_ had been easy once.

"Well," she sighed keeping her arms close now until her fingers warmed. "What to do now?"

There was nothing _to_ do. Nothing at all. No goals to reach. No assignments. No spell work with tantalizing answers just waiting for one more round of study. No chores, actually, or at least not for the remainder of the day.

Hmm.

Hmm, hmm, hmm.

If she climbed up a tree, to the very top, would she be able to see Lake Mulsantir from there? How far _was_ it, really?


	109. Suddenly: An Accomplice!

Half a year stalking deer and small-game had apparently proved insufficient to prepare Homen/Nadezdha for the acrobatics and sense of balance that were needed for genuinely absent-minded shenanigans. She'd nearly gone and twisted her ankle on that rock there! How many times had she fallen already?

But darn it there was a very large tree of unknown pedigree on the other side of the brook, and all other tree heights had proven insufficient to see any glimpse of Lake Mulsantir!

A thorough misting and several scrapes and bruises later, and a mildly battered Nadezdha had reached the tree she sought. It took her three trys to jumps from a log to the lowest-lying branch, and she was panting by the time she pulled herself up onto it. One branch down! She started for the next... and the next...

...and the next... and the next...

Around halfway up the tree- which had smooth white bark and a pink interior- she started having second thoughts. A few branches later, and her arms were shaking, and her breath was coming hard, and she realized that she was... _exhausted_. The tree was much larger than she expected, and the branches were much bigger around. She tried to pull herself up to another branch, and failed. She pulled and pulled, but her muscles didn't clench properly. She threw a foot up over the edge, but ended up just dangling there stupidly.

Oh dear.

She had greatly underestimated the endurance required for this time. Particularly after wearing out the palms of her hands and the caps of her knees on several other trees first. She was dangling with one heel up over a branch she'd yet to surmount, panting and worried if she'd make it down again, thinking about how _ridiculous _this all was and wondering how she'd ever put herself into such a predicament or how she was to get out. Could she even go a single branch higher? Right, but getting down was twice as dangerous... This was stupid. S_tupid stupid stupid_. She heaved and wormed and shimmied and scraped her elbows to pull her breast up onto the tree, and then she swung herself awkwardly over it, and begged for air. Time to rest, and then time to _go back down at once_.

"This was _dumb_. No point to it. Dumb," she muttered. "Why in Mystra's name did I ever-?"

All at once there was a flurry about her head, and she jumped in place. Her balance teetered and she realized she was about to fall out of a tree. Her arms squeezed reflexively to the branch, and the swung about underneath it with a great deal of scrapes to herself and her garment.

"Ah-!"

Something flew right close to her nose! Something tiny. It was a hummingbird? Hummingbirds were teal, and this was brown. She crossed her eyes to try and get a better look at it Her eyes nearly crossed trying to bring it into focus, and then she realized she was looking at a teeny, tiny, horse-shaped something.

"Humming Horse!" she announced her suprise, for such a thing was of the Faewild!

The humming horse gave a tiny trumpeting whinny, and then pounced on her and buried its way into her hair.

"Eek!" The tickling sensation and squirming and confusion caused her to lose her grip, and she had a terrifying moment where she thought she might fall a very long distance straight onto her _head_, but then another branch got in her way and she clung to it so tightly that she surely ripped her dress a bit. But she _did not fall_.

Her little assailant squeaked in alarm. Nadezdha gulped. Peices of snow and bits of bark drifted to the ground far below them. Nadezdha peered a long, long, long way down. The Humming Horse peered to. Then the two of them looked at one another.

"Am I in the Faewild?" Nadezdha wondered.

It cooed a negative.

"Oh. What happened? Don't I know you? Didn't I send you home? Did you lose your way? "

It cooed very sadly.

"But... then you came to find me?"

It squeaked delightedly and kissed her nose, and flew in a circle.

The Thayvian boy who was no longer a Thayvian and not presently a boy was quiet a long moment. Then she smiled brightly.

"I'm trying to find out if I can see the Lake from the top of this tree," she explained. "Want to help?"


	110. Mushi

One did not need to see a calendar to know that Greengrass was coming!

Bits of green were cracking everywhere through the ice, popping up in game trails down every hillside. The Orchards trees were still waiting out the last frosts of winter, but every branch was brimming with so much life, so much potential, so much anticipation that even _Homen_ could feel it! Every snaky, scraggly twig that clawed at the newly blue skyies was ready to give honor onto their namesake: ready to put out new shoots, ready to bud, ready to put out flowers, _ready to fruit_...! Sheilaktar assured him that the Orchards would be veritably _erupting_ with fruit come summer. Nudisne paced around the tiny cottage inside, sniffing at everyone's fingers for treats and repeatedly peering her little fox head out the windows as if to see if said the aforementioned yummy-yums had arrived while she wasn't looking.

And Greengrass. _Tomorrow_. Tomorrow they'd be traveling for _Greengrass_, and there'd be other people, and other witches, and things to do and foods to try!

He was smiling as he brushed his hair straight for the last time and began to adorn it with practiced streamers of felt and ribbons and braided twigs. Mushi floated near his mirror with her curly tail anchored its edge. She squinted at him as he worked, and then blew a trumpety sneeze. He tilted his head to the side to see where he'd made an error. "Ah This is always harder than it looks." The Humming Horse gave a doubtful trill. "Oh? Fine then, _you_ try doing it sometime." She waggled her tiny little fins helplessly about. He laughed. "Alright, try learning _magic_ and then turn yourself into a pixie and_ then_ help me." She made a sound only transcribed as 'pbbbtthhh!' as she rolled her head around in annoyed exasperation. He broke out laughing.

"I will be transmuting thee into a girl and shielding thee with mentally protective magics before we depart," Sheilaktar graciously warned him this time, with a glance at Mushi's antics. Sheilaktar had been skeptical of letting the Humming Horse into the house initially, but Mushi had proven nearly impossible to dissuade "As much as thy disguise has proven robust even against the discerning eyes and ears of the Fae, I shall wish it as the _fallback_ to protect thee when all else fails; not as thy lone armor."

Homen understood and agreed. "Can you thicken my hair a bit and fatten out my hips?" he hoped, and then blushed when Sheilaktar gave him an amused glance. "Sennetta, is it entirely necessary to tease me with such judgmental expressions?" he protested. "I'm recommending it for a tactical reason."

Her lips quirked.

He scowled, flustered, but continued: "If we presume your transmutation is sensed and if someone somehow manages to dispel it, I will look all the more suspicious if my appearance _doesn't_ dramatically change with it gone. The Hathran will wonder what more subtle secrets I must be hiding. But if I do immediately lose some weight and luster, and if they know you cannot cast illusions, then we have given them a decoy 'explanation' for why I was transmuted in the first place: to look less offensive on the eye.

Sheilaktar leaned back to think, and the nodded. "That is canny of thee. As powerful as I am, Orthlor are more powerful, and Yhelbruna has already proven through Nythra that she is interested in thy circumstances. We art lucky she was more interested in using thee to open _me_ up than she was concerned with thyself; but then she is a very wise and clever old witch. Best we prepare for further investigations and even accidents. For example, Mulptan is far from the Thayvian border, but Rasheman is oft the subject of invasions. And, as thou doest surmise: the only reason no one thought to sniff thee for transmutations at thine first meeting with the Hathran, is because thou were already in such a _displeasing_ shape simply by being Thayvian."

He nodded as he tied in another ribbon. "What would you have done? If things had gone differently that day; If they had rejected me?"

Her eyes closed to half-mast. "That didn't happen."

"It could have. There were so many of them, and some had fought with and researched Thay well enough to know I was of an age sufficient to wear Red..."

She nodded. "If they had but _rejected_ thee, my weight would have been sufficient protection from their ill humor. Thou noticed me armed and antsy, did thou not? But if they had uncovered the ruse in it's entirety... Well, thou and I would both _drown_ in trouble so deep. There is no return from that."

Homen paused in his grooming process and looked uncertainly up at her. Had she truly put her own life and status all at risk for him? Mushi cooed unhappily and flew over to snuggle affectionately up under his chin.

Sheilaktar stood and came over to him, and gently pat his shoulder. "Whilst that danger has abated, it will never truly pass. For all thy life, Homen, thou will need to protect against discovery. Guard thyself- and guard thy master who loves thee!- well." She pinched his cheek just for good measure, and he smiled rather than winced.

"Do I have to protect myself from Mushi?" he asked her rhetorically. The Humming Horse gasped and sputtered angrily at him for daring to utter such nonsense. He turned to her with a grin. "Mushi I've been lying to you all these months. I'm secretly: a boy!"

Mushi pretended to go rigid with shock and then feigned a fainting episode that had her drifting down to earth like a feather. He giggled, caught her in the cup of both hands and nuzzled his face into her, earning a trumpeting of magic bubbles for his trouble.

"No," Sheilaktar drawled wryly, thoroughly amused by this ridiculous display. "I hardly see why thou might want to 'protect' thyself from this imp when clearly she has already set her heart on becoming thy familiar."

He winced and Mushi preened. He cleared his throat and sat back in his chair. "Senneta, that's not really fair of you to say when I'm not even _trying_ to study anymore_. _I'm never going to be a 'witch.' I haven't looked at my book in-"

"Pish-posh. This is something that will come with _time_," Sheilaktar promised him. "The Goddess knows thee better than thou credits her with, and her show of approval was neither trivial nor mundane. Go to Greengrass. Enjoy thyself. Have fun with Nythra, and with thy little nuisance here," she pet Mushi for emphasis. Learn to balance thy-"

"-I am no sorcerer and lack for your inborn magical strength," he interrupted a little heatedly, and then immediately recoiled from her startled expression. "I mean... I won't be able to summon up magic one day just because my head's suddenly in the right place. I need to make logical _sense_ of it all, and to study it, and to put it all together piece by piece and I just-"

"Thou hast done this thing thou speaks of once already," Sheilaktar informed him. "Learning magic? Thou has done it once, from scratch, and proven it possible. And thou shall do it again," she pet his hair, "but only when thou art ready. Do not suffer so. Do not label thyself so. Be content in the ambiguity of the unknown. Be calm with an ocean of possibilities before thee, and enjoy the present shoreline for what it is."

He huffed and thought about this. "Easier said than done..."

"For thee, yes," she agreed. "But most people only have one childhood, and thou hast been given _two_. Do not be so eager to escape it."

That did cheer him up again. "I'll try." Mushi trumpeted to let him know she'd help.


	111. Miracle

Nythra glanced in the direction of all the stares. Then she glanced a second time. A third. Then she turned about and stared too (and even narrowed her eyes and squinted a little), because surely the sight of a giant Dire Bat at Greengrass _had_ to be the sunlight playing with her eyes. But lo and behold: there was Sheilaktar in all her stormy, raven-feathered ominousness, dismounting the giant bat and raising up her arms to help down a beautifully-dressed young Mulan companion.

"Sweet goddesses of mercy," Nythra proclaimed, awestruck. "Yhelbruna! Yhelbruna, Orthlor, you will never in a thousand years guess who just turned up out here!"

The old woman turned to her from where she'd been engaged in a friendly discussion of the year's trade with a crowd of pleased faces including the Multrong, the Ydrass matriarch, and one of the Wychlaran's several Shou witches: a woman by the name of Feilai.

"Who, dear?" Mulptan sat at the very heart of the Golden Way, a route which joined the east coast to the west and was surrounded on all sides by every manner of wild national. 'Twas Rasheman's most 'cosmopolitan' city and boasted its most diverse population, with foreign residents from every part of the greater Faerun and Kara-Tur. To put it lightly, there was an untold numbers of unexpected and interesting persons to which Nythra could be referring!

"Sheilaktar! The Dusk Dragon has come to _Greengrass_!"

Yhelbruna straightened incredulously, and then actually laughed with a smile that reached all the way up to her eyes. "Good heavens, it seems our little Nadezdha really _is_ a miracle. Welcome them then, little robin! _Welcome _them!"


	112. Don't worry, I'm a professional

"_Wow_."

Mulptan was a sprawling, windswept city enclosed by an old stone wall dating back to the Narfell-Raumathar wars. It was the largest city in all Rasheman, seated far north of Mulsantir and the southern border. Her only real knowledge of geography came from her Thayvian upbringing, which of course meant that it was terribly biased; but even Thayvian textbooks had admitted Mulptan's population could swell to rival Eltabattar's shortly after the winter thaws. Had Homen Oddesseiron and all his sneering, back-stabbing, fellow schoolmates really scoffed at that number? Not Nadezdha! Not when she and Sheilaktar had just flown miles over _thousands_ of horses, and hundreds of caravans, and absolutely ridiculous, _ridiculous_ numbers of sheep!

She had been warned ahead of time that Mulptan at Greengrass would be several orders of magnitude more _populous _than Mulsantir at Midwinter; but she was so ill-accustomed to seeing _people_ on a daily basis that the broad lay of the city still left an impression on her. A good impression! What a pleasure to know—to see firsthand and witness!—that there were spawning metropolitan cities outside of Thay, where people went about their lives farming and crafting without a care in the world for domineering evil wizards!

Were those Tuigan horsemen she saw, then? And Nars? Seldom did people of the Endless Wastes wind up in Thay, even by route of _slavery_...! Gah! She was going to need to see everything, absolutely everything! Well, alright, clearly she couldn't see _everything_; but there was a feast out there for the eyes and ears (and no shortage of literal feasts, surely) and she needed to partake of it!

"Be careful," Sheilaktar chuckled with a gentle squeeze on her apprentice' shoulder. "Though might officially be Unproven, but word does not always travel fast to every last nook and corner of the world. Some may find the sight of thee quite strange."

"I shall charm them," Nadezdha informed her defiantly. "I am far too cute to lob vegetables at this time around. And I'm an enchanter, you know." Even if she wasn't, not yet, and maybe never would be. Today was a day for optimism! Mushi agreed, but was a little bit shy, and so contented herself with peeking out from Nadezdha's hood at all these exciting things afoot.

"Doubtless thou shall," Sheilaktar teased wryly with a pinch at the younger girl's cheek. "Speaking of charmed persons, I think thy first victim may be looking for thee."

"Hmm?" Nadezdha turned about, and found a Hathran with a robin-mask was pushing through the crowd ahead of them. Nythra! The older girl saw her and waved. Nadezdha grinned up at Sheilaktar. "Can I go play?"

"Ha! Best thou does. Ah, one thing I have very nearly forgotten to tell you: the amulet we made thee? Let no one see it."

"I... presumed its functionality wouldn't easily be guessed..." Nadezdha floundered at this reminder of her disguise.

"Oh, we are not hiding it because of what it _does_," Sheilaktar said with a glance about them for eavesdroppers. "It is taboo for Wychlaran to make magical items. That task is exclusively for Vreymonni. I get some leeway because of my background but... best to pick our fights wisely, mm?"

Nadezdha blinked at her. "I am gaining a greater appreciation for why you have chosen _me_ as your apprentice."

Sheilaktar kissed the crown of her head and then gave her a satchel of money, boosting her off just as Nythra arrived. "Go have fun!" she called after them. "And stay away from handsome boys, they are nothing but trouble!"

Nadezdha turned scarlet, and Nythra burst out laughing and threw a hug about her."Na_dez_dha!" the robin-Hathran cooed. "Whatever did you do to get that mean old grumpy-puss of yours to bring you to _Greengrass_? I've missed you! I've missed you I've missed you I've missed you! Let me have a look at you!" No sooner had Nadezdha successfully hugged back than Nythra was pushing her out to arm's distance again. "You have a dress!"

"I have a _corset_," Nadezdha agreed with a nervous giggle, and Nythra burst out laughing again and hugged her even tighter.

"I _see _that!" She waved to Sheilaktar and then pulled Nadezdha along, and Nadezdha was happy to go with her. They passed by countless animals and many traders already setting up their wares. "Nadezdha you are _beautiful_. Have you already had your fill of disgruntled old hags pecking at your personal appearance after only one sitting? Fie on them! Come, come, I want to show- what in the name of the goddess is _that_?" She stopped in her tracks.

"What?" Nadezdha looked at herself.

Nythra pointed at Mushi, who promptly hid back inside Nadezdha's hood. "_That_!"

"Oh! Oh this is Mushi. Mushi, please allow me to introduce you to my friend, Nythra of Seven Rivers. Nythra..." she reached behind herself into her hood, and got the humminghorse to curl about her finger. There! She gently pulled Mushi out into the open, and pet her to reassure her. "_This_ is my lovely assistant, Miss Mushi."

Nythra of Seven Rivers looked as awestruck as if Nadezdha had just produced a brick of pure Electrum. "My goodness little Miss Mushi, what a darling little thing you are...!" The humminghorse puffed herself up at this praise and fluttered her wings and preened herself. Nythra leaned over and—to Nadezdha's surprise—reached up to pull aside her mask that she might see Mushi better. This was the very first time Nadezdha had ever seen her face, and she most certainly stared. Nythra had a plainness to her oval face belied by mischievous bright eyes and a crown of wild and frizzy hair. She was older than Nadezdha of course, but not as old as even Sheilaktar. Twenty, maybe? Twenty-one?

Nythra noticed her stare and stuck out her tongue. "What _is_ Mushi?" she giggled.

"Well she's a humminghorse, naturally," Nadezdha explained as if this was all very normal. "She lost her way back to her skylilly patch when she she fell asleep mid-migration, and since those are _so_ terribly boring to try and track down again, she decided to come live with me instead. I might flatter myself into thinking I'm interesting; is it true, Mushi? Am I?" Mushi trilled and released a torrent of bubbles!

"Oh _naturally,_" Nythra laughed, looking excited and beaming from ear to ear "What the devil is a skylilly?"

_Ah! _This was surely a clue as to why Yhelbruna was so interested in seeing Sheilaktar take an apprentice. If few Hathran truly journeyed into the deep Feywild the way Sheilaktar did, then the skills and knowledge Nadezdha picked up there would be invaluable. "Hmm, well, that's for me to know and you to find out."

"You sly _goose_, you had no idea I didn't know until I asked you!"

"Nope! Mushi's secrets are now my secrets, I'll never tell!"

"Then I won't show you the yogurt stall!"

"GASP! But then I won't tell you about my spellbook! Or my secret to getting perfect hair braids! Or my Phoenix Feather!"

"Your _what_!?"

"YOGURT OR THE SECRETS DIE WITH US!"


	113. Girlfriends

The two girls sat together, eating hot baked apple pies and watching the sunset. Mushi was sleepy, so Nadezdha was petting her and feeding her a fruity crumble or two.

Hehe, Nythra had not so much 'welcomed' Sheilaktar as she had spent the entire day romping through the city with this _adorable_ Mulan flutterbird of hers! They'd been busy—so busy!—seeing _absolutely everything, _tasting foods from all the corners of the world, playing tag, tumbling unwittingly into all sorts of hijinx and watching Mushi chase off mean-tempered chickens with a torrent of bubbles!

How many complaints was Yhelbruna going to get because Nythra had accidentally fallen over the cabbage stall? Ha! As if Nythra weren't a Hathran and an adult in her own right! (Not that she'd been acting like it, eek!) But, then, at least it was hard for anyone to shoot dirty looks Nadezdha's way, not when she was squealing in mock-terror, being chased by a flock of robins, shedding gold in every direction on account of a Glitterdust spell, had her hair glamoured blue, and was wearing _such_ an adorable, pleated, green-and-yellow dress.

Nythra _had_ finally caught her—her and the last two apple pies they'd see in at _least_ another hour—and another war of tickling had gotten involved before everyone had settled down to enjoy their pastries like sensible people! Hehe! Goddess above, but it was good to be young! Best enjoy it while she could; she had far too many years ahead of her to grow old with the rest of her Sisters. Plus it was easy to pretend she really was seventeen again, given that Nadezdha was so much taller than her!

"I've never had friends before," Nadezdha confessed.

Nythra yawned and giggled. "Well is it as terrible as you were lead to believe?"

Nadezdha smiled at her. "I _can_ be your friend, right? Even though I'm just Unproven and you're a Hathran?"

Nythra put an arm around her. "You are absolutely my friend. I'm adopting you. We shall get matching beads in our hair and everything. It's official." She took off her mask gave the other girl a smooch on the temple. "You're too cute, you know that? How could anyone not love that face? Pinchy cheek, pinchy cheek!"

The Mulan girl blushed happily and batted her pinching fingers away. "Thanks. You don't know what it means to me. Really."

"Of course! How's Sheilaktar?" Nythra was curious to know. "Has she gotten all cantankerous and unbearable yet?"

"_Never_," Nadezdha defied all expectations with a grin. "Oh, let me show you." She rummaged in her carrying satchel and then pulled out a _lovely_ lavender book that Nadezdha could immediately identify.

"You mentioned a spellbook! Is that _dragon_ leather?"

"Mm hmm!"

"_Beautiful_."

"But it's still _basically empty_," Nadezdha lamented. She glanced up furtively at Nythra and then words came rolling out in a fearful little deluge: "I... I can't _grasp_ magic. It just won't come to me. I study and I study and I study, but it doesn't come. And when it doesn't come, Sheilaktar just... just tells me to go out and play. I feel stupid and useless and like I'm wasting time. I feel like I'm wasting _her_ time, too."

Nythra raised a brow at her, and considered this dilemma. It was usually difficult to pick up magic if one didn't master the fundamentals at an early age. That was half the reason that Wychlaran children benefited in being raised by Vreymonni. "Do you trust her to _really_ know you? Sheilaktar? Better than _you_ know you?"

Nadezdha looked down at her spellbook for a bit and rubbed over the cover. Then she looked back up at her and nodded. "Yeah. In lots of ways, even if not in all of them. Neither... neither of us had a very good childhood."

Nythra considered this and then nodded, and patted the taller girl's arm, and laid her head upon her shoulder. "Okku thought the Hidden One was fond of you, remember? The Goddess works in very subtle and strange ways. You should trust her, you know? The goddess. And you should trust Sheilaktar to know where your limitations are. Maybe she understand you're at a roadblock, but knows the proper way across it is just as new and foreign to you as 'having friends.' Magic is... more organic than 'study, study, study.' You have to have the right inspiration."

The Mulani girl sighed. Nythra gave her arm another little squeeze, and felt better when Nadezdha hugged her back. "Besides, you don't _have_ to learn magic to belong here or to be a worthwhile friend. I'm still keeping you! And I think you're quite impressive just for knowing Mushi, to be honest. Do you see any fae following me around?"

"That does make me feel better."

"Hehe, of course it does. Because it's _true_. You are very special, Nadezdha. You get a very reclusive Hathran out of her hermit cottage and off socializing with her people again. It's like you've breathed new life into her. Yhelbruna called you a _miracle_."

"'Again'?" Nadezdha was sharp. "Nythra, did something _happen _to Sheilaktar? She... she seems a little young to be getting called a 'hag' and a 'recluse'."

"Oh, um... you should probably ask Sheilaktar."

Nadezdha wasn't taking that for an answer. "Why? I know _my_ Hathran, and there is nothing you could possibly say to turn me against her. But everyone gossips about her. And then, when I ask you about it, you tell me to go interrogate a very private woman who probably doesn't want to relive all the things you're muttering about, and would get even more distant from 'her people' again. So I won't ask her, not about such unspecific things; but it's not fair of you to condemn me to ignorance."

Nythra considered this and and scooted herself upright because it deserved some seriousness from her. "Well I think Sheilaktar has had a lot of 'things' happen to her, all the way back to when she was very small. She broke all the rules and never fit in, and many of the Hathran just never _let_ her. But if you want to point at something specific, I don't think Sheilaktar wanted to come back to Rasheman after her Djemma. Ever. I think there was only one person to tie her here, and she came back just to say goodbye to him, and then found out he'd died of pneumonia while she was gone. And I don't think she ever forgave herself. She ended up settling down here, and takes a strong interest in little villages and people everyone else has dismissed as lost causes."

"Who was this man who tied her here?"

"An old ranger. I don't know what his name was. He came out of nowhere years ago and brought this mean-faced, dark-skinned, broad-shouldered teen of a girl with him, and he told the Hathran he wanted them to let her take the Ethran test. We kids all laughed at how ignorant he was, because he was just some dirty _man _andwe had no idea who she was, or where she had come from, and mages don't just pop out of _nowhere_ knowing all the secrets of Rasheman.

"But, as you can imagine, Sheilaktar passed her test to become an Ethran—and her test to become a Hathran a few years later— as if it were all trivial. _With no mentor_. She's never apprenticed under anyone but the Orthlors, and then only for a very short time under each of them, and then only _after_ becoming a Hathran. If you believe her testimony, the people who _actually _did the grunt work of teaching her magic were all fae. And that... that makes her very strange to us, and sometimes threatening, but also very special.

"Anyway, I think his death hit her hard, because there was so much she could have easily done for him if she'd just _been_ there. Mind you, that's conjecture on my part, based on what I've put together from little bits of gossip here and little bits of gossip there. Yhelbruna mostly likes to leave Sheilaktar's privacy intact."

Nadezdha withdrew a bit to consider this.

"She... she is a very valuable Sister to us," Nythra offered. "She fights like you would not _believe_, and she knows a great deal about the dark places of the world. Her magic has this... old, rough, primal texture to it. When things get bad, we need her. And, so, seeing _you_ coax her out of her shell, seeing you help to mend the divide between her and the other Hathran a bit... It's wonderful. She needs you. A lot more than maybe you realize. And, by proxy, _we_ need you, too, because you help take care of her."

Nadezdha lowered her head. "I'm sorry I steered the topic of conversation so heavy," she said at last. "I ruined the playful mood."

"Well," Nythra stretched. "It's late. What do you say we retire to an inn, immerse ourselves in the tumultuously festive atmosphere of the berserkers, and have some good old firewine?"

Nadezdha perked up a bit and then grinned. "This plan, I like."

"Good! Because you still have yet to tell me about this 'Phoenix Feather' you've mentioned."

"Aha!I haven't? I haven't. Excellent, then you shall have to pay my bar tab to loosen my tongue."

"Hehe, deal!" Nythra poked her in the ribs. "Knowing you, it won't be much!"


	114. Inspiration

Nythra and Nadezdha managed to find Sheilaktar among all the bustle, which was impressive enough in it's own right! But then Sheilaktar was more likely to hang out with Rasheman's men than its women, for whatever reason, and so perhaps it was not _too_ surprising they found her in one of the most rambunctious bars in town, shouting encouragements and laying bets on who would win an arm-wrestling competition.

She grinned at them when she saw them, and waved them over to join her, and ordered two bottles of firewine and the house's special-cooked rothe dinner, 'for my companion to try!' That she was comfortably suffused with alcohol was quite clear, and the younger girls couldn't help but grin at the sight of her enjoying herself. _This _was not the light under which most Wychlaran saw Sheilaktar!

"I think you're warmer when drunk!" Nadezdha teased her as she started into the gigantic meal Sheilaktar had ordered for them. By the _goddess_, it was a whole sheep!

"Drunk?! _Ha!_" the necromancer dismissed, and then hauled her close and gave her a kiss on the top of the head. "Blame all the men who keep hoping to get a date tonight; I swear they keep filling up my tankard!"

"These aren't _cute boys_ are they?" Nythra demanded. "You told us those were nothing but trouble!"

"Terrible trouble!" Sheilaktar laughed. "Here, hold my beer! This fool here thinks he can outmatch me at the javelin toss, and that insult will not stand!"

There was a target for javalin toss right in front of the bustling lodge, and just as many people were drinking outside as were in. Nadezdha supposed it dangerous, having sharp objects around so many potentially inebriated people, but then maybe that was all just in keeping with the spirit of the place.

"Should we follow?"

"We might lose our dinner, and this is _fantastic_," Nythra argued, and it was a good argument, so Nadezdha cut them both another big portion of deliciousness.

Outside a lot of whooping and hollering surrounded the javalin toss match which, Nadezdha strongly suspected, Sheilaktar had little to no chance of losing even whilst tipsy. The woman had taken down a _dragon_, so what hope did these men have? Nythra's story that afternoon had certainly shed some light on her proficiency in hunting, tracking, and herbal ointments!

As Nadezdha drank, and ate, and enjoyed the company and the atmosphere, she took note of the rough and worn table she was eating at, covered as it was in a thousand scratches. Her gaze wandered from scratch to scratch, from line to line. After a moment, she dug in one of her pockets and came up with a bit of lint. _Wool_, specifically. Hmm. Mushi nudged her elbow, and she blinked rapidly and looked down to see the humminghorse hopping about excitedly.

"What are you-?"

A huge cheer came up from outside. By the way they started chanting her name for a bit (Shei-lak-tar! Shei-lak-tar!) a Hathran had just won by quite an exhilarating throw. They ushered her back inside and toasted to her health. Nadezdha turned around, just in time to see one of them steal a kiss on Sheilaktar's cheek. And Sheilaktar, far from being offended, turned to the man in question, grabbed him by the collar, dragged him forward, and made it swiftly into a kiss on the mouth.

Homen nearly jumped out of his skinin alarm, but then winced and looked away. A reptilian voice rose up to laugh in the back of his head. _Don't say anything. Don't say anything. Not your business. Don't say anything._

"What?" Nythra saw his displeasure, and looked behind them. "_Oh...!_" She leaned back near him. "That's still bothering you?"

Homen groaned, covering his face. "I don't want to talk about it."

"You—do you think you're really, really genuinely attracted to her?"

By the temperature, he was most probably a shade of scarlet by now. "I don't want to talk about it," he repeated.

"Oh my goodness, this looks serious. Nadezdha... Nadezdha, have you ever _told _her that you like her?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

Mushi nudged repeatedly at his elbow. Homen looked miserably down at the little creature, and at the table he'd been contemplating earlier and the little bit of wool clutched between his fingertips. All memory of the previous moment's significance—whatever it had been—was lost to him. Nythra piped up with: "Are you sure you don't want to at least _try_ a man first?" and Homen cringed.

"I'm rather sure," he squeaked, and that was when things went from bad to terrible, because one of the berserkers—who was about their same age—had clearly overheard the discussion and was now leaning down beside him. Um, '_her'_.

"We can't be _all_ bad," the Rashemi man grinned with a boyish smirk, and Homen/Nadezdha instantaneously wanted to evaporate.

"Please don't talk to me," he/she begged.

"Give me just one chance?" he reached across Homen/Nadezdha and squeezed his/her opposite shoulder, hovering close. This would have been impossible if he'd been a lowlander, which meant he was a highlander, which meant he was most probably _much taller_ _and stronger_. "The others can say what they want, I still think you're as pretty as any girl."

Mushi was looking up into Homen's face, now incredibly serious.

Nythra laughed and tried to rescue him."Let her be, let her be! Can't you see she's embarrassed?"

"She doesn't _have_ to be." Fingers touched near his/her throat. "She's-"

Homen twisted and place and blew sharply in his assailant's direction. The impulse to do so came from _nowhere_, and yet the result was palpable: the berserker jerked away from her and stumbled back a step as if shocked, and then stood there dumbly for a moment, shaking his head. Nythra perked up. Mushi darted up to perch on Homen's shoulder and jumped about trumpeting angrily in the berserker's direction.

Homen glared, then blinked, and then looked hesitantly down to where his fingers _tingled_. The bit of wool he'd been holding was gone. _Unwoven. _Mushi nuzzled enthusiastically against his cheek. Beside him, Nythra reached out worriedly to touch his arm, and gave him a little shake.

"Nadezdha? Are you okay?"

"Nadezdha!" Sheilaktar's voice cut through his mental fog, and he twisted about to see her walking straight for him. "I _saw_ that! Of all the ways to see thee break a wall! Of _course_ thou would need to do it in the most _melodramatic _fashion possible! It is as if _ridiculous timing_ is baked into thine blood!"

"What?" Homen choked, so very glad to have her back beside him and _not_ in any of the rear rooms of the inn. "I-I don't-"

Sheilaktar chased off the berserker who'd been imposing on him (with no more than a glower), and then turned a bewildered look onto Homen himself. Her brows furrowed. Then she leaned over, and took his face in both her hands. "Thou art unharmed and safe," she told him. "Breathe. Breathe, Nadezdha, thou art perfectly alright, and have done nothing wrong."

Nadezdha. Not 'Homen.' _Nadezdha_. H-_she _closed her eyes and reached out hesitantly for the warmth of her mentor. Sheilakter pulled _her _close and hugged her. Mushi wormed in between them and cuddled up against _her_ chin.

"We shall make an enchanter of thee yet," Sheilaktar whispered over her hair. "Because that was a _daze _thou just cast on a whim. A _compulsion_. An _enchantment_. And thou haven't even looked at thy spellbook in weeks, have thee? No, no, the goddess knows thee, child. Come. Come, let us get thee a bit of air. Thou looketh like thou art about to faint. I'll _carry_ thee."


	115. Summary

_This is the second-to-last chapter of Surthay. If/when I continue the story, it will be called 'Surthay, Part II'_

* * *

"Greengrass was fruitful in more than one way this year, it seems," Yhelbruna mused as lavender bathwater was drawn and poured. "Sheilaktar most certainly has a student, now, and the girl is sweet enough to serve as a go-between for her and her fellow Wychlaran. A little enchantress, ah. It's been a long time since we've seen Fae and Spirits take to any mage in such broad stripes. All the more beautifully ironic that the girl should have come out from the land of Thay."

Nythra smiled as she helped the older witch with her hair. "Not everyone is as excited about it as we are, old swan. She already has her enemies, or, at least, has bought Sheilaktar more of them. And the poor thing's just as delicate as a _flower, _more likely to crumble over at a harsh word than to stand up for herself."

"I'm sure the contrast will do Sheilaktar more good than ill." The Orthlor had a wry tone to her voice. "A fitting complement to a woman who has been getting in fist-fights since puberty. Besides, you underestimate Nadezdha. Thayvians are hardier than they look; and you forget that she made the swim across Lake Mulsantir entirely on her own. She has a strength to her, both physical and mental."

"Can we help get her some footing, at least?"

"Of course we will _help_, little robin. We have our ways. But those ways are soft-handed, to smooth out and soothe all these cracks of infighting. Most actual conversations will have to be weathered by Nadezdha herself, as she works to find her social niche amid so many strong and opinionated women." She reflected for a moment as she settled down into her bath. "Are there any other details which stood out to you?"

_She cast without a verbal component, _Nythra thought but did not say, because Nadezdha was seventeen years old, and wizard girls in Thay were taken into academy as young as five. But wizard girls could be expelled long before they had a chance to reach the top, or be found wanting and flunk out to escape more arduous lessons and more violent teachers. Nadezdha very obviously lacked the ruthless temperament of a red-caped monster, and Rasheman had been her new beginning.

Nadezdha was her friend. And Nythra would not invite more long-term suspicion onto her abilities, not when the answer could have been as simple as factoring in Mushi's unusual help.


	116. The End

Homen Odesseiron went through his chores with enthusiasm. He made breakfast, and put on the blueberry tea so that it would be ready for Sheilaktar as she awoke. He fed the goats and milked them. He shoveled poop and spent hay into the mulch bins. He weeded and watered the budding garden. There were two tears in his dress that needed mending, and some dusting to be done.

Sheilaktar was up and having her tea. He curled up in the window before the apple tree with his book, and glanced out at the songbirds, and fed Mushi dried berries and flower petals dipped in honey. He cracked open his spell book, with its lavender cover of dragon leather, and dipped his Phoenix quill in ink that he might begin to write.

The daze spell was suddenly easy to him; so easy that he could feel the shapes and curves of it humming away somewhere in the back of his mind. He wondered if this all meant he carried an underlying whiff of sorcery, and then supposed it might be a moot distinction while learning from Sheilaktar. Perhaps all that mattered was that he could feel magic again.

He glanced up at Mushi as he worked, and she flopped into him and wormed about all snuggley into his clothes,

In Thay, acquiring a familiar was a very conscious process; one chose the desired creature, performed the necessary ritual and—if the creature was weak enough and the Mage was strong enough—the spell would splice a fragment of the mage's soul into the familiar's, binding them. There were other techniques, yes, but all of them were equally explicit: the familiar could be spawned off the mage's soul and then would take an animal form 'befitting' the one whom it had been born from; it could be crafted from clay and blood, as in the case of a homunculus; or the familiar could be a creature from the outer planes; and it was even possible to bond oneself onto an object, like a spell book, or a staff. But all of these things were accomplished by spellery, not by the slow accrue of time.

Leonlai had dissuaded Homen from taking a familiar, after a lengthy process by which the two of them had evaluated its risks and rewards. At the time, their fundamental concern had been security. Homen had once had an older brother; but said brother had not survived to adulthood, and the circumstances of his death had looked suspicious. Homen didn't remember the older boy, and had hardly ever seen him; but he did remember the day his ashes had been delivered back to them in a small wooden box. And he certainly remembered the urn which his parents had kept in the center of the study, as a constant reminder onto their children of what fate awaited incompetence.

Oof. These were not good memories.

He tickled Mushi and pet her tail when she wrapped it about his fingers. He could feel a strange sort of bond with her, however faint, and worried about what it might do to her. He suspected it might still be in the formative process, and—if so—it could most probably be interrupted just by sending her away from him.

"Mushi, do you wish to be a familiar?" he asked, for she was surely quite intelligent and deserved her choice in the matter. But Mushi gave a very crisp nod. Then she resumed wiggling back and forward in an effort to burrow herself further into his coat, He laughed, and scooped her up, and kissed her on the nose and atop the head. He held her close. "Okay," he accepted this. "But then we must find out how to make you big enough to carry me, because if I am to have a humming horse, then there is no reason for us not to float gaily about our business looking entirely ridiculous and unruffled no matter whether we are going to Greengrass or into battle. Fair?"

Mushi flapped her tiny wingies in a thrilled surge of excitement, and blew bubbles everywhere.

"Oh is that so?" grumbled Sheilaktar over her breakfast. "Enchantment first, child. Thou hast thine work cut out for thee already."

"Have you another spell for me?" he asked, and Mushi poked her head up curiously from the curl of his arms like a groundhog.

"Perhaps. Tell me, in modern magical theory, what are the two schools of Enchantment?"

"Charms and Compulsions," he recited. "Are they different for Wychlaran?"

"Mnn. When I first transformed thee into a girl, thou protested that Illusion ought to be my forbidden school if Necromancy was my specialty. My magic is not constrained by the theories of Mage councils, whether be they staffed by male or female wizards; I do not 'specialize' in that fashion. As thou grow to learn more of fae, thou willt see hags 'specialize' in illusions, poisons, potions, transmutations, plants, animals, enchantments, necromantic endeavors, abjurations, and divination. Thou willt not see them follow the same rules which by which humans and elves have decided are 'best.'"

"I am next to learn a spell that is not 'classically' considered part of enchantment, then?" He wagered.

"Enchantment was once divided into Ensorcellments—which included charms and compulsions, and reigned over the magic of thoughts—and Dweomers, which bothered about the magical enhancement of _things_. In some systems, the former was considered the realm of 'air' fae, like elves, and the latter was the realm of 'earth' fae, like dwarves. In any event, time grew past those theories, and the creation of magical items became seen as an 'unaffiliated' art... Over time, spells that dealt with the working of physical objects were rewritten, and faded into transmutation or into abjuration. But if you wish proof that their is a connection between modern enchantment and modern craftsmanship of wondrous items, one need look only at how dwarves still, to this day, oft produce artifact items upon the forge and smithy, even by craftsman knowing nothing of 'real magic.'

"You are going to teach me to enchant items?" He tilted his head to the side. "Are we attempting to violate all the Wychlaran taboos, or is this one of those funny cases where it's actually _okay_ for me to learn enchantment because I secretly actually am male?"

Sheilaktar laughed. "Both. Also I hope to use this as a tool to pace thy outward _appearance_ of learning, in the event that thou proveth quicker than expected. We have a lot of work to do, and thou hast much, much to learn."

* * *

_This ends Surthay. Which ironically didn't actually get us back to Surthay, and should probably be named 'Rasheman' XD XD. In any event, the sequel should show up eventually. If I get the urge :3 Love you all, and toodles!_


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